Russia’s Orbital Technologies will be competing with Bigelow’s inflatable space hotels, which should make things a bit more interesting up there.

After three months of training, the stay up there can be 3 to 180 days. Five days costs $165K, flights not included.

The dehydrated food is flown in, instead of showers they will provide wet wipes, and worst of all, no booze.

But they will have an air-powered toilet, the feature that most needs upgrading from the ISS (according to tourist astronaut Richard Garriott).

It will eventually be a stopover for circumlunar flights (and Space Adventures has sold a seat for that already).

14 responses to “Joining the 217-Mile-High Club”

  1. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Lobby
    int_3_1

    bedroom (with SLR cameras rendered in an odd grey)
    int_4
    int_5

    All so very neat and clean… I bet it ends up looking more like what Garriott saw on the ISS
    IMG_1835

    P.S. Bigelow needs bigger windows. =)
    NASA Deputy Administrator Tours Bigelow Aerospace (201102040004HQ)
    NASA Deputy Administrator Tours Bigelow Aerospace (201102040003HQ)

    Reply
  2. solerena Avatar
    solerena

    vennetaj, it will be ready around 2016… cool, i would go:D hope there will be more hotels -.. yep, might be a nice place for a date:D Or a honeymoon:D Even honeymoon on a moon:D

    Reply
  3. WF&DT Avatar
    WF&DT

    Gee whiz I hope they build the other half of it.

    Reply
  4. Astrocatou Avatar
    Astrocatou

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/wfdt]
    Don’t hold your breath….

    Reply
  5. avlxyz Avatar
    avlxyz

    sounds like a million dollar camping trip 🙂

    Reply
  6. Dr DAD (Daniel A D'Auria MD) Avatar
    Dr DAD (Daniel A D’Auria MD)

    Don’t think my 600mm will be of much use up there, and it would probably cost too much to transport! The only thing that might stop me from going would be the thought of how long I could stay in Jamaica for 165K! Great post Steve!

    Reply
  7. flytrue2 Avatar
    flytrue2

    I’d go in a heartbeat although I’d like my accomidations to include shuttle sized windows.

    Reply
  8. rajjda Avatar
    rajjda

    what? no ziplines?

    Reply
  9. Astrocatou Avatar
    Astrocatou

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/24/russia-space-idUSLDE77...

    Reply
  10. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Yeah, two failed Russian launches within one week… and U.S. political reaction

    Reply
  11. Erik Charlton Avatar
    Erik Charlton

    no shower + 180 day stay…humm. No thanks.

    Reply
  12. TEG2 Avatar
    TEG2

    Reply
  13. TrombaMarina Avatar
    TrombaMarina

    I apologize in advance for being the ultimate killjoy. I’m a huge fan of space technology, but with the price of fuel ever rising and the semi-global economic meltdown we are experiencing… I feel like the Space Age for manned exploration was the crowning achievement of the golden age of the USA and cheap energy. Long-distance spaceflight and long-term space habitation are extremely difficult and expensive, and push certain physical constraints (like the human bone density and/or lifetime) that we currently see no way around.

    I guess I still think it’s possible we’ll land a human on Mars once, though not likely. I don’t see us ever going any farther than that. Even if someone were to travel, suicide mission to Vega by exploding an asteroid at a rate that provides 1G accelleration half-way there and 1G decelleration the other half-way, and they didn’t get hit by a micrometeorite, then managed to find another suitable source of disposable mass and not get hit by all the matter they left in their trail on the way back, all their friends relatives would be dead by the time they returned from the light speed effects.

    Unless we find a way to create something like the science fiction "warp bubble" (and who knows what that would mean) then interstellar travel just isn’t going to happen. If there is intelligent life out there, we won’t be riding out to find them, they will have to come to us, or maybe we’ll just be pen pals.

    Without a destination, is there a point of leaving the atmosphere? I’m sure some people will pay for the experience, but the exploration has been done. Is there any need for humans in space? Repair crews for satellites?

    It’s still exciting to me that we *can* do this, have a space station or hotel. That SpaceShipTwo can leave atmosphere for $200K per seat. But beyond charging for the novelty, I no longer see the point. Instead of discovering rich and verdant worlds, we’ve discovered the ultimate desert with very sparsely distributed extremely hostile environments.

    If Mars were known to be completely covered with loose diamonds and chunks of platinum, I’m guessing it still wouldn’t be worthwhile to send someone to go and get them. The estimated cost of the Apollo program in 2005 dollars is $170 Billion. Well worth it for exploration – to know what’s out there and to know what we are capable of. But I imagine the cost of getting anything to or from another planet for economic gain would be prohibitive.

    Where is the vision of where we are going in space? Is space now just an expensive novelty experience and a place to hang communication equipment? I just can’t get excited about that the way I could about boldly exploring "Space: the final frontier."

    Reply
  14. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    I think there is plenty to do on Mars and the NEOs for the near term. Beyond our solar system, we’ll send genetic code and adaptive compilers, not fragile tissue.

    Reply

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