Luxurious Orbiting Space Hotel

If you really want a vacation to get away from life’s humdrum day-to-day banalities, then maybe you need to buy a ticket on Russian design company Orbital Technologies' orbiting space hotel which could be open for business as early as 2016.

Six guests (and one pilot) will get to stay in four cabins, with a journey time of about two days to arrive and dock, five days (and two nights) in orbit, with a quick re-entry of a couple of hours. The hotel cost is a heady £100,000 (€114,000 or US$164,000), plus £500,000 (€571,000 or US$823,000) for getting up there (probably a tip is extra).

This sounds like a lot, but Russia is presently billing US and European astronauts a cool US$50 million (£30.4 million or €34.7million) a seat for rides to the International Space Station.

Russian launch vehicle manufacturer, Energia is also designing a six-person shuttle with a soft landing system to replace the 40-year-old Soyuz workhorse, possibly providing the uber-rich with a gentle landing after their space jaunt. The station is to be orbited at 217 miles (349kms) above Earth, which should give a great view of the planet, Moon, Sun and stars.

"Our planned module inside will not remind you of the International Space Station. A hotel should be comfortable inside, and it will be possible to look at the Earth through large portholes. The hotel will be aimed at wealthy individuals and people working for private companies who want to do research in space," according to the Daily Mail interview of Sergei Kostenko, chief executive of Orbital Technologies.

Food will be pre-prepared on Earth, and iced tea, mineral-water and fruit juices will be the order of the day, with alcohol forbidden. There will be showers, and toilets, with waste-water recycling and the air will be filtered to prevent bacteria spreading.

We’ve written about the high GHG emission cost of space launches in other articles, so maybe they will include a fee for some offsets (not that they really work – best not to emit them in the first place). I’m all for space exploration, planetary research and observation, but I’m not so sure about commercial uber-rich getaways in orbit.