Work is set to begin on the world’s first ‘space hotel’ in low-Earth orbit in 2025 – and it will be equipped with a restaurant, cinema, spa and rooms for up to 400 people.
Developed by the Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC), Voyager Station will be operational in early 2027, with infrastructural facilities built in orbit around the Earth.
The space station will form a large circle and rotate to generate artificial gravity that will be set at the same level of gravity as seen on the lunar surface.
The Voyager Station hotel will include many of the amenities you would expect from a cruise ship, including a themed restaurant, health spa and cinema.
It will feature a series of attached horns on the outside of the rotating ring, and some of them will be sold to NASA and ESA for space exploration.
No details have been released on the cost of building the space station, or spending a night at the hotel, although the OAC says build costs are getting cheaper due to reusable vehicles like the SpaceX Falcon 9 and the future Starship.
Developed by the Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC), Voyager Station will be operational in early 2027, with infrastructure built into orbit around the Earth.
The space station will form a large circle and rotate to generate artificial gravity that will set the same level of gravity as seen on the lunar surface.
The Voyager Station hotel will include many of the amenities you would expect from a cruise ship, including a themed restaurant, health spa and cinema.
The Voyager Class space station will be made up of a series of rings, with a number of ‘modules’ attached to the outside of the rings.
Some of these 24 modules will be operated by the Gateway Foundation and will be for things like crew quarters, air, water and power.
They will also include a gym, kitchen, restaurant, bar and other essential facilities for the people as they have been at the station for a long time.
Other modules will be leased or sold to private companies and governments.
For example, people can buy one of the 20×12 meter modules for a private villa or multiple modules to build a hotel with a spa, cinema and more.
Government agencies can use the station for their own science module or as a training center for astronauts preparing to go to Mars.
In an idea by Werner von Braun, the idea of building a space station revolving around a central, circular wheel goes back to the early days of space travel.
He was one of the architects of the NASA Apollo program and proposed spinning a wheel-shaped dwelling to create artificial gravity in the 1950s.
The concept for Voyager Station, which is a similar idea but on a much larger scale, first came out in 2012 with the launch of the Gateway Foundation.
The OAC, established by the Foundation to realize the vision of the obsessive station, was established in 2018 with the goal of becoming operational by the year 2027.
It will feature a series of attached horns on the outside of the rotating ring, and some of them will be sold to NASA and ESA for space exploration.
Some of these 24 modules will be operated by the Gateway Foundation and will be for matters such as crew quarters, air, water and power.
If fully realized it would be the largest man-made object placed in space.
While the cost of the development and construction of the space station has not been announced, with the introduction of the SpaceX Falcon 9 and the future SpaceX Starship, it has become more practical to orbit large objects.
The average cost of launching material into space has long been around 000 8,000 per kg, but the reusable nature of the Falcon 9 has reduced this to $ 2,000 / kg and SpaceX predicts that Starship will bring it down to a few hundred dollars.
Starship and other futures will make the fully reusable spacecraft practical as it will allow regular and fast connections between Earth and Voyager.
The team consists of NASA veterans, pilots, engineers and architects, creating a system that includes multiple pods and a high-speed ‘space train’ for a variety of purposes.
Of these 24 integrated accommodation modules, 20 meters will be 12 meters long and 12 meters wide and will perform a separate function from hotel rooms to movie theaters.
The firm also expects their ring viewing lounges, event venues, bars, libraries, gyms and spas – all the things you’ll see on a cruise ship, but this one will travel around the world every 90 minutes.
The first team plans to test the concept with several small scale prototype stations and a free-flying microgravity facility, similar to the International Space Station.
‘This will be the next industrial revolution,’ said John Blinko, founder of the Gateway Foundation, which will create a new space industry.
Blinko says rotation is “alive” because it’s no longer practical to keep people on the space station without gravity for long – and people want to stay in space for months at a time, especially when working in a hotel.
‘People need gravity so their bodies don’t break.’ Blinko added that the station can help us understand how much gravity our body needs as it can increase or decrease the rotation rate to keep gravity high or low. .
While the cost of development and construction of the space station has not been announced, with the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 and the future SpaceX Starship, it has become more practical to orbit large objects.
The firm also expects their ring-watching lounges, concert venues, bars, libraries, gyms and spas – all the things you see on a cruise ship, but this will travel around the world in 90 minutes.
Blinko says rotation is “alive” because it’s no longer possible to keep people on the space station without gravity – and people want to stay in space for months at a time, especially when working in a hotel.
When the test is complete a robot named STAR – Structure Truss Assembly Robot – will make the frame for the Voyager in the orbit.
The first space formation will be a 61-meter gravity ring in the Earth’s lower orbit that can spin to create gravity at the level of Mars – 40% of the Earth’s gravity.
It will take about two years to build and is called a ‘near-term demonstrator’ – while it takes three days to put it together in space.
While the hotel is the initial target of the artificial gravity space station, the company hopes to lease pod space to agencies including NASA and ESA in the future.
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