Chicago Tribune by Marwa Eltagouri 4/7/2018
Looking for a getaway that offers unmatched views of sunrises and sunsets? Specifically, 384 of them in 12 days?
Try outer space.
Houston-based Orion Span hopes to launch the "first luxury hotel in space" - the 35-by-14 foot Aurora Station - by late 2021 and bring guests on board the following year. The hotel will accommodate up to four travelers and two crew members at a time, racing them around the planet at high speeds for 12 days, the company said in a news release.
Adventurers pay $9.5 million per person - or about $791,666 a night - and their $80,000 deposit can already be reserved online, company officials said. But don't fear: The deposit is fully refundable.
"We want to get people into space because it's the final frontier for our civilization," Orion Span's founder and chief executive, Frank Bunger, told Bloomberg.
Bunger said that one reason Orion Span can aim for a price of less than $10 million per person is because of the declining price of launches.
"Everybody's forecasting that [launch prices are] going to fall," he told Bloomberg. "Almost every week there's another rocket launch company that's starting up with a new way to get to orbit cheaper, faster, better."
Orion Span's announcement of a luxury hotel in space comes amid a revival of the commercial space industry. The launch of Elon Musk's Falcon Heavy from the Kennedy Space Center in February, for example, was the latest in a series of milestones that have renewed companies' interest in space.
More:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/science/ct-space-hotel-20180406-story.html
