You Can Now Book a Stay at the World’s First Luxury Space Hotel
Even Han Solo gets tired. And after a long day of less-than-12-parsecs Kessel Runs, we’d bet he’d like a nicer place to lay his weary head than Chewie’s funky chest. Well, he’s now in luck (though I guess not really, since we all know how things turned out for him in The Force Awakens): Houston-based company Orion Span, Inc. has just announced plans to open “the first luxury hotel in space.”
Perhaps realizing that space is the final frontier not only for Captain Picard and co., but also for the hospitality industry, Orion Space is hoping to corner the market on premium zero-gravity lodgings. The Aurora Station Space Hotel will orbit 200 miles above Earth, offering six people (four guests and two crew members) 384 sunrises and sunsets as they race around the planet for 12 days at Kessel Run-worthy speeds (okay, maybe not that fast). The company aims to launch the modular station in 2021 and welcome its first guests the following year.
A stay at the Aurora will cost you a cool $9.5 million USD. Deposits are already being accepted here for $80,000 USD per person. They’re refundable, however — just in case this celestial B&B doesn’t, well, exist by the time your reservation is ready. Guests will have to undergo a three-month training program before launch, which is still far shorter than the two years that were typically required for previous space tourists.
The Aurora will have four guest suites, but not the most room to spread out; the entire station will measure 43.5 feet long by 14.1 feet wide. It basically looks like a giant, Beats Pill-shaped cylinder that can fit inside a rocket.
Orion Span has ambitions that extend beyond space hospitality. The company says it also wants to offer charters to space agencies and serve as a base for space manufacturing. Also, you can finally stop waiting for that Canadian housing bubble to burst — Orion hopes to eventually sell the world’s first extraterrestrial condos.
