Stay at luxury space hotel Aurora Station for $9.5 million | CNET

The Aurora Station could tour you around low-Earth orbit as soon as 2022, if you have $9.5 million to burn. (That includes high-speed wireless internet.)

Tired of all those Earth vacations and their boring palm trees, beaches and gravity?

US space technology startup Orion Span has unveiled Aurora Station, a luxury space hotel it says will be hosting tourists in low-Earth orbit by 2022.

« Our goal is to make space accessible to all by continuing to drive greater value at lower cost, » says Frank Bunger, Orion Span CEO and founder.

Don’t get too excited by the « lower cost » bit, though, budget travelers. Bunger’s talking $9.5 million dollars for a 12-day « astronaut in training » experience 200 miles (322 kilometers) above Earth. In all fairness though, that does include launch to the hotel — and towel service. And it’s millions less than other tourist jaunts into space. A trip aboard one of the rockets to the ISS now runs more than $40 million.

Construction on the Aurora Station will begin next year in Houston, Bunger says, though not at NASA, because this is a private venture. The hotel will basically be a cylinder that fits inside a rocket and can accommodate four guests at a time, plus two crew members who also happen to be former astronauts. At least one will have space-medicine know-how, Bungee tells me, should a passenger get a case of Zero-G germs…

La suite : Stay at luxury space hotel Aurora Station for $9.5 million – CNET

5 mai 2018