Russia reportedly wants to build a five-star luxury hotel up at the International Space Station (ISS), which will allow the super-rich to experience space in an affluent environment.
The Russian ISS hotel will include a luxury orbital suite, with private cabins, Popular Mechanics reported. The luxurious cabins will also reportedly come with massive windows that will allow space tourists to take in the breathtaking views of outer space, personal exercise equipment – because there’s just no excuse to miss out on a workout and even Wi-Fi.
Space tourists will also be offered the opportunity to go on spacewalks, accompanied by a professional cosmonaut. Popular Mechanics reported that the trip to space, which could be as long as one to two weeks will cost around $40m (£30m) per person. However, opting for a spacewalk or extending the trip to a month-long stay will end up setting backspace tourists by an additional $20m.
According to Roscomos’ business plan for the ISS space tourism module that Popular Mechanics claims to have perused, the luxury space hotel will be a new 20-tonne addition to the ISS. The 15.5-meter-long module is slated to provide 92 cubic meters of pressurized space and will include four sleeping quarters, around two cubic meters each. The module will also reportedly include two “hygiene and medical” stations of the same size.
The Russian firm manufacturing the module RKK Energia will reportedly be spending around $279-$446m and will take around five years to be developed. This means that the space tourism module may likely be up and running by 2022. RKK Energia reportedly plans to fly six tourists to space each year.
Popular Mechanics reported that the firm wants at least 12 passengers to pay a minimum of $4m up front, not unlike Virgin Galactic’s initial approach. The same clients will then be expected to pay two installments of $12.6m in the next two years, making a final payment of $10.8m at the time of flight.
Meanwhile, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are currently working on successful space flights for tourists instead of focusing on short or long-term space holidays. Blue Origin and SpaceX expect to send their very first batch of space tourists up to space as soon as 2018.
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