The background music of the space hotel replays regularly, but ever more ambitious projects are quickly being aborted or abandoned and the wealthy tourists disenchanted. But what about Orion Span? The project seem to be sufficiently advanced and sound to become a reality by 2022. Here is what tomorrow’s travellers could expect from the Aurora Space Station.
Waking up with your head in the stars
According to the official announcement on April 5, 2018, during the Space 2.0 Summit in California, Orion Span could offer the first trip in a luxury space hotel in 2022. Six people, including two crew members, would then take up a 42 metre square cell for a twelve-day getaway on board the Aurora station. Perched in a low Earth orbit, it would be 320 kilometres from the Earth, 87 kilometres lower than the International Space Station. The conditions have been widely studied so that tourists can make the most of their trip in space: wide windows on board to admire the blue planet, northern and southern auroras as well as 16 “daily” sunrises and sunsets; unlimited access to high-speed internet to sent photos and selfies of all these wonders to earth-bound friends. In addition to contemplation, the traveller will be able to engage in weightless flight in the station, participate in certain research experiments such as growing food in orbit or experience a moment of virtual reality.
The traveller as a contributor
Spending a few days in space means both financial and human commitment. As a first step, the space tourist will have to undergo three months of training at the Onion Span base in Houston, Texas, during which he will receive the Orion Span Astronaut Certification. Then, his assessment will continue during his stay at the Aurora Station, and if applicable will lead to final certification. In addition to this human commitment, which requires a lot of self-composure, good physical condition and a health psychological condition, residing in a space hotel for twelve days requires having deep pockets: close to $9.8 million – per person, yet – and $80,000 for the reservation (which is supposed to be refundable if you change your mind) which has already begun. This cost does not appear unreasonable to Frank Bunger, creator of the concept, who reminds us that “historically, it costs $20 to 30 million to send someone up there.”
Ambitious projects carried out by talented entrepreneurs
In 2007, the Galactic Suite had the ambition of offering space trips, similar to that of the Aurora Station, around a central module with four radial modules, allowing six space tourists to be accommodated simultaneously. One year later, reservations were taken and 38 people were placed on a waiting list. Since 2014, the project appeared to be finally abandoned. In the last few years, several daunting entrepreneurs have revived the idea of space tourism, such as Jeff Bezos (Amazon); Elon Musk (SpaceX); RKK Energia (Russian company), which wants to secure a 15-metre long module for a week to the International Space Station, or Richard Branson, whose company Virgin Galactic plans to offer eight tourists a few seconds of weightlessness at an altitude of 15,000 metres from his suborbital aircraft SpaceShipTwo.
Although such a project is always fraught with pitfalls, disappointments, accidents…, Frank Bunger seems confident in his epic, so much so that he is already aspiring to expand his Aurora Station module to increase its accommodation capacity and especially to… sell it as the first space apartment.