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SPACE HOTEL says it's on schedule to open in 2012. SPACE. HOTEL. HOTEL IN SPACE.

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G

Gaborn

Member
BARCELONA, Spain - A company behind plans to open the first hotel in space says it is on target to accept its first paying guests in 2012 despite critics questioning the investment and time frame for the multi-billion dollar project.

The Barcelona-based architects of The Galactic Suite Space Resort say it will cost $4.4 million for a three-night stay at the hotel, with this price including an eight-week training course on a tropical island.

During their stay, guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and travel around the world every 80 minutes. They would wear Velcro suits so they can crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

Galactic Suite Ltd's CEO Xavier Claramunt, a former aerospace engineer, said the project will put his company at the forefront of an infant industry with a huge future ahead of it, and forecast space travel will become common in the future.

"It's very normal to think that your children, possibly within 15 years, could spend a weekend in space," he told Reuters Television.

A nascent space tourism industry is beginning to take shape with construction underway in New Mexico of Spaceport America, the world's first facility built specifically for space-bound commercial customers and fee-paying passengers.

British tycoon Richard Branson's space tours firm, Virgin Galactic, will use the facility to propel tourists into suborbital space at a cost of $200,000 a ride.

Galactic Suite Ltd, set up in 2007, hopes to start its project with a single pod in orbit 280 miles above the earth, with the capacity to hold four guests and two astronaut-pilots.

It will take a day and a half to reach the pod — which Claramunt compared to a mountain retreat, with no staff to greet the traveler.

"When the passengers arrive in the rocket, they will join it for three days, rocket and capsule. With this we create in the tourist a confidence that he hasn't been abandoned. After three days the passenger returns to the transport rocket and returns to earth," he said.

More than 200 people have expressed an interest in traveling to the space hotel and at least 43 people have already reserved.

The numbers are similar for Virgin Galactic with 300 people already paid or signed up for the trip but unlike Branson, Galactic Suite say they will use Russian rockets to transport their guests into space from a spaceport to be build on an island in the Caribbean.

But critics have questioned the project, saying the time frame is unreasonable and also where the money is coming from to finance the project.

Claramunt said an anonymous billionaire space enthusiast has granted $3 billion to finance the project.
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Story Here
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
News flash: They don't have gravity in space
 
P

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Oli said:
I'm guessing they can have a coupon day, or something.
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:lol :lol :lol

Best Jurassic Park reference ever.
 
T

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Will they call it BEYOND Coast? Please please call it (or the whole colony after this hotel is successful) BEYOND Coast.

I'd have to get my recoil gun training so I can go all Lethal Weapon in Space 2 on it.
 
F

Fenderputty

Banned
speculawyer said:
A real orbiting space hotel? I'm skeptical.
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I hope it works. I hope they make money off of extravagant billionaires. I hope beyond all hopes that by the time I die, this will have reached a price level that someone normal can save for. The idea of spending 3 days in weightless space while watching the sun rise over the earth every 80 mins is the stuff dreams are made of.

Please be commercially viable ... please please please.
 
I

iamcool388

Member
galactic-suite-01.jpg
 
C

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
They need to spend a few extra bucks on a decent logo. I mean seriously, I would not get on board a SPACE SHUTTLE with this logo slapped on it:

awfullogo.jpg
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Am I reading that right? The people up there will be by themselves? No staff? No trained astronaut? Is the rocket supposed to be automated or something?
 
V

Veidt

Blasphemer who refuses to accept bagged milk as his personal savior
"Virgin Galatic"

Humanity is getting more awesome by the day.
 
A

ant_

not characteristic of ants at all
3 days stuck in a room? After 1 day space would be boring. The next 2 days would suck.
 
B

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
OuterWorldVoice said:
It's gonna be at Lagrange point. Ticket price just went up.
Click to expand...

Would be cool if they built some massive structure there (with the new telescope in the vicinity).
 
hitsugi

hitsugi

Member
people can claim they're going to accomplish / open / create / whatever they feel like in 2012...


they're just banking on the world ending before they get called on it
 
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