Russian Firm Plans Orbiting Hotel In Space

MOSCOW — A Russian firm on Wednesday announced an ambitious bid to fill the vacuum in the space tourism market by stationing an orbiting hotel in the cosmos.

The Moscow-based Orbital Technologies has sky-high hopes that its planned Commercial Space Station can serve as a tourism hub for well-heeled travellers and offer overspill accommodation for the International Space Station and workspace for science projects.

But it's unlikely to come anytime soon – the company wants to launch a seven-room station by 2016 but may increase or decrease that capacity based on customer demand.

It also remained unclear whether the state-controlled RKK Energia company, named as the general contractor for the project, would have enough funds and capacities to carry out the plan. Energia builds Soyuz crew capsules and Progress cargo ships to deliver space crew and supplies to the International Space Station that would be the only link to space after planned retirement of the U.S. shuttle fleet next year.

Sergey Kostenko, Orbital Tehcnologies' chief executive, told The Associated Press in an interview that the planned station would be "a comfortable hotel in orbit, designed specifically for tourists."

"But it will be more comfortable than the International Space Station because there won't be any unnecessary scientific equipment," he said.

Until now, space tourists – a handful of megarich CEOs and philanthropists – have had to suffer the indignity of hitching a ride with astronauts and cosmonauts to the International Space Station and float around the space laboratory trying not to break anything.

Now, or at least soon, they will have a place to gawk at the view in private. The design is still being worked out but some sketches released by Orbital Technologies resemble the International Space Station.

Orbital Technologies does not disclose the cost of the project.

All the space tourists who have traveled to the International Space Station were trained in Russia and sent into orbit on Russian Soyuz capsules, although their trips were organized by a Virginia-based company.

Canadian Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, who spent 12 days in space in September 2009, was the last space tourist to travel to the station. Russia halted space tourism this year after the crew size was increased, using the seats in Soyuz that would have been sold to paying travelers.

Food at the new station will be suited for individual preferences, Kostenko said, and the organizers are thinking of employing celebrity chefs to cook the food before it is packaged and sent into space.

Comments

[Tperl]

08:17 AM on 09/30/2010

Who is going to make the bed everyday? How will you get the mint to stay on the pillow?

[DuffyShort]

04:49 PM on 09/29/2010

These are the folks that coudn't keep their tanks running and you should go to space with them....They were some dumb they invaded Afghanistan....Hmm!

[MikeDu]

04:17 PM on 09/29/2010

Unless they push that space station out beyond where any manned missions have gone for 30 years the view out your window is definitely NOT going to look at all like that. Low earth orbit's closer to the view out a passenger jet window.

This story goes to show just how much of the world's money the top 1% oligarch class really has compared to the bottom 99%, to spend it on such pointless extravagances.

[topkatnc]

07:08 AM on 10/02/2010

Indeed !!

[KIVPossum]

02:47 PM on 09/29/2010

7 room station, run by Russians....heck, you still won't be able to get any service.

[GeeBee]

04:27 PM on 09/29/2010

And you better bring your own toilet paper.