Are you excited for the prospect of technological advancements which could see you travel in space on your next vacation?
Well, it might be a lot sooner than you thought.
The Gateway Foundation recently announced that will be the first company to launch a hotel in space, which is called the Voyager Station.
With hopes of completing the project in 2027, it’s said to be a 50,000-square-metre facility that will be built by Orbital Assembly Corporation.
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The company describes itself as ‘the world's first large scale space construction company’ - which is pretty cool.
The organisations plan to begin working on it in 2026, and visitors will be able to visit the following year - just in cause you couldn't wait.
Holding up to 440 people, the rotating hotel expects to give the station gravity equivalent to one-sixth of the Earth's.
At the time of its initial plans in 2019, senior design architect Tim Alatorre told Dezeen: "Eventually, going to space will just be another option people will pick for their vacation, just like going on a cruise, or going to Disney World.
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"Because the overall costs are still so high most people assume that space tourism will only be available to the super-rich, and while I think this will be true for the next several years, the Gateway Foundation has a goal of making space travel open to everyone."
The first thing the company will start building is its central un-pressurised ring structure with the docking hub at its centre before moving on to a 200-metre-diametre outer ring truss, which will be connected to a network.
With 24 habitation modules on board that will contain living quarters, restaurants, gyms, bars, accommodation for the crew and even scientific research pods, it’s going to be a big ship.
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According to the organisation, the space hotel will have the ‘feel of a luxury hotel’, and it’s going to be full of neutral colours - not to dissimilar from a regular hotel on our little blue planet.
Alatorre said: "In the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick's Space Station 5 is a sterile, white, museum-like hotel.
"While it made for a clearly futuristic feeling in the movie, in reality, it wasn't a very inviting space. As humans, we innately connect to natural materials and colours."
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If luxury is what it’s after, it’s sure heading in the right direction as it’ll also feature 500-square-metre ‘luxury villas’ where you can actually rented to live in permanently.
Not only will they have enough room to house 16 people, but they also have three bathrooms and a massive kitchen.
According to the Gateway Foundation, their experience ‘will rival the best venues on Earth’ and will get to see a water feature that ‘will seemingly defy the laws of physics’.
Alatorre added: "We are planning on full-service kitchens with all of the dishes you would expect on a luxury cruise ship or in a major hotel.
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"A lot of the logistical issues for food service have been worked out years ago by the cruise ship industry."
And in a 2022 interview with CNN, he said they were 'doing everything we can to make space accessible to everyone', not just billionaires.
Okay, I’m sold.
Topics: Space, Technology, Travel