Russian company Orbital Technologies unveiled plans this week for a hotel in space that could cost visitors about stg£100,000 for a five-day stay. That’s in addition to the stg£250,000 cost to get there.
The orbiting hotel, called the CSS (Commercial Space Station), will be “far more comfortable” than the International Space Station, said Orbital’s chief executive Sergei Kostenko.
The 706-cubic feet pod will be built 350 kilometres above Earth and be accessible via Russian Soyuz rockets.
The hotel will have four cabins that will be able to accommodate seven guests, huge portholes and sealed showers designed to accommodate the lack of gravity in space. Guests can dine on meals suited to their preferences and then retire on either vertical or horizontal beds – again, designed with respect to the weightlessness in space.
“The hotel will be aimed at wealthy individuals and people working for private companies who want to do research in space,” Kostenko said.
He added that several partnership agreements have already been signed, and further funding is being sought from private enterprises.
CSS will be up and running by 2016, Kostenko said.
Astronauts aboard the space station will able to use the hotel as an emergency bolthole.
