The world is opening each day more to the possibility of humans living in space, and it seems that we are going to achieve it soon.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos announced Thursday that it’s planning to create a luxury hotel inside the ISS for space tourists who want to enjoy an unusual and unique lifestyle for up to a month at a time.
With NASA supporting Elon Musk’s company SpaceX – which is developing new spacecraft not only to send astronauts to the International Space Station but also Mars – experts wonder when ordinary civilians are going to be able to reach the skies, too.
Popular Mechanics saw the proposal of the Roscosmo State Corporation and informed that the guests at the hotel would enjoy professional ISS cosmonauts and be part of spacewalks. Also, they’ll have access to exercise equipment to avoid muscular mass loss, their own hygiene facilities, and WiFi to communicate with other civilians on Earth.
Of course: not everyone will be able to visit and stay at the not-so-common hotel because the payment will be costly. Each visitor will have to pay between $40 million and $60 million per trip.
According to the Russians, the package that includes the spacewalks with the cosmonauts will cost roughly $60 million. Without it, it would cost around $40 million.
The 20-ton, 15.5-meter-long, high-comfort module will add together 92 cubic meters of pressurized space. Also, it will be divided among four rooms of two cubic meters each, alongside two “hygiene and medical” rooms of the same size, and a lounge with a giant 16-inch window – which is perfect for people scared to go out and feel the immensity of space.
RKK Energia, Russia’s prime space station contractor, estimates that this hotel will cost between $279 and $466 million. To start, it wants to gather 12 passengers who would agree to pay the amount of $4 million up front.
The company, according to Popular Mechanics, also said that the hotel would be completely ready in about five years. However, experts would have to start soon if they want to achieve that goal.
Not the only one expecting it
This module will be similar to the Science and Power Module (NEM-1), which is already scheduled to arrive at the ISS in 2021.
Private and state investments will have to pay around $279 million and $446 million to build the hotel. This is why the experts expect to ask the first passengers to start paying two years before they’re launched to the ISS.
Although this is an incredible plan that the Russians aim, they are not the only ones who have that idea. Other companies, like private ventures by Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, and Russian firm KosmoKurs, have also thought about space tourism.
Just at the beginning of 2017, Blue Origin released pictures of a capsule it just finished to develop. A team from the company wrote that they wanted to build the navy to take humans near the edge of our world’s atmosphere, right 62 miles above the planet.
In accordance, they also launched a video using mannequins as human passengers and showing how amazing it would be to travel inside the capsule while watching everything at the ground in such a long distance.
Practically, Blue Origin wants to create a sort of a plane for space. Just exactly like one of these, the capsule will be constructed with one window for each passenger. Plus, it will feature the “largest windows ever in space,” so they can all appreciate the curved-shape of our planet.
The also Amazon founder said in March that his company has been designing the capsule interior “with an eye toward precision engineering, safety, and comfort.” Bezos then assured that “every seat’s a window seat.”
Bezos expects to see the first passengers his company’s going to take to the edge of the Earth before the next two years. KosmoKurs, on the other hand, said it expects to send humans to space in 2020.
Virgin Galactic has not established any date to start sending humans to meet what’s above us. However, it already has received money from people who are interested in being part of its project.
“When we are confident we can safely carry our customers to space, we will start doing so,” the company said in a statement last year. “We feel incredibly honored that our earliest paying customers already number more than the total number of humans who have ever been to space.”
Russia wants to colonize the moon
Russia is also aiming to reach the moon, again. This is something they hadn’t done since 40 years ago when the Luna-24 was still sending cosmonauts to explore the ambiguity of space in our natural satellite.
However, authorities informed last month that they’re planning to build the Luna-25. Thus, to explore the South Pole and extract soil samples. These then will be sent to Earth, where the experts will be able to perform a new analysis.
The Luna-25 is expected to cost around $40 million but will turn the country into a space potency again.
Unlike the Luna-24, the Luna-25 will not need any human onboard. Instead, this one will serve as an automated space station.
Russians expect to launch it in 2020, to then colonize the moon by setting new bases at the end of 2030. This is something that interested the European Space Agency, who announced in 2016 its intentions to join Russia.
Source: Popular Mechanics