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| Robert Bigelow's Space Station Bigelow Space Operations |
Are you always looking for something a little different when it comes to travelling? Well, booking a “room” in a hotel that floats in space would probably be right up your street.
Robert Bigelow, a billionaire hotel mogul, has announced plans to launch just that.
The 72-year-old says a 'B330' line of space stations, advertised as 'fully autonomous standalone space stations’, is already underway.
Consisting of two 17-metre modules that will be linked to create outer-space accommodations - the units, once conjoined, will actually offer twice the cubic capacity of the International Space Station. The modules will be able to function in low-Earth orbit (a zone about 250 miles above Earth) and cislunar space.
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| Robert Bigelow's Space Hotel |
He’s hoping to sell time slots to governments that need time in space for scientific reasons but also to sell “holidays” to people. The units will reportedly hold around six people each.
Sadly for the majority though, spending a night in space won’t be a reality. Reserved for the mega wealthy, Bigelow says bookings will cost in the "low seven figures” though most likely in the “low eight figure”.
Bigelow made his money by launching the hotel chain Budget Suites of America in 1987 but was always fascinated by space. Growing up in Las Vegas, he was privy to science through witnessing - from a distance - a number of atomic tests conducted in Neveda.
He has previously said that at the age of 12 he "decided that his future lay in space travel, despite his limitations [in mathematics, and] he resolved to choose a career that would make him rich enough that, one day, he could hire the scientific expertise required to launch his own space program. Until then, he would tell no one—not even his wife—about his ultimate goal."
In 1999 he finally founded his private space firm, Bigelow Aerospace but this hotel is part of his new company Bigelow Space Operations. The project is reported to be costing a cool $2.3 billion.
