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An unnamed billionaire has invested $3 billion in the Galactic Suite space hotel project

According to the company, it will be possible to book three nights at a price of 3 million euros per person starting in 2012, however the company does not reveal too many details about the launcher, and there is no publication regarding experiments being conducted to test it

The space hotel
The space hotel

The space hotel, which the Galactic Suite company headquartered in Barcelona, ​​Spain will market flights to starting in 2012 is gaining momentum. The Galactic Suite company announced that a billionaire who prefers to remain anonymous contributed or invested an amount of 3 billion dollars in financing the project.

Future space tourists who want to pack their belongings and fly for a weekend in space will be required to prepare a sum of 3 million euros ($4.5 million) for a three-night stay, which will be preceded by eight weeks of training on a tropical island. For comparison, a flight to the International Space Station on a Soyuz spacecraft, which is the only type of space tourism possible today, costs 30 million dollars, and the number of places allocated to it is limited due to the need to put astronauts on board to operate the station. Despite the high cost and the long time until the hotel opened, over 200 people were interested in the flight and 43 even paid advances on the account of the reservation.

It should be noted that since the establishment of the company in 2007, it has maintained secrecy and revealed very few details about the systems that will be used by it and especially the launchers, who builds them and when the test flights are planned, this is in contrast to Richard Branson's company Virgin Galactic, which openly develops with the assistance of Scaled Composite the spacecraft Spaceship-2 which will do a much simpler thing than Galactic Suite, it will only take off to the edge of space, allow the tourists a few minutes of weightlessness and return to Earth.

As someone who covers the field, it is worth noting that the space industry is not such a large industry, and a simple look at the financial reports of the companies could have revealed who received a tender to build a private spaceship.

According to the company's publications, the hotel, which is actually a new space station, will circle the earth at an altitude of about 450 kilometers. The duration of the tour is about 80 minutes and therefore the tourists will watch 15 sunrises and sunsets, and move inside the room by clinging to the walls like Spider-Man. The CEO of Galactic Suite, Javier Clermont, said that the project will place his company at the forefront of the field, when it will be ahead of everyone else, and he predicts that space flights will be common in the future.

However, the suspicious thing about Galactic Suite's announcements is that they do not reveal which vessel the tourists will fly to the space hotel. Today, except for government space agencies (NASA, the Russian space agency and the corresponding department in China), it is not possible to launch manned missions, certainly not for private companies.

From the details that do appear on the company's website, we learn that it is a revolutionary launch system designed to optimize security and minimize the impact on the environment. The company's team of engineers and architects designed an infrastructure through which the spacecraft will accelerate using magnets on a unique runway (Maglev).

After reaching the speed of sound, the spacecraft will separate from the accelerator and reach an orbit at an altitude of 450 kilometers using the rocket engine. At the time of separation, the Maglev will return to its starting point to prepare for the next launch. The system will give the spacecraft an acceleration that will bring it to a speed of one thousand km/h in less than 20 seconds. The most expensive part of a launch is the fuel wasted in the first seconds of leaving the ground. This technology will allow the launch to be cheaper, and in the company's estimation it is also safe and stable."

For the news in Popular Science
to the Galactic Suite site

15 תגובות

  1. Sounds like a dream, I don't know how realistic it is, also because of the costs, also because of the limitations listed in the article, also because of the safety issue, but who knows, maybe it will really happen. The truth is, if I had the money and ability I would go for it. In the meantime, I'm content with the class on space at the Magid Institute in Tel Aviv, which is given by Professor Zvi Piran and Professor Ram Sri from the Department of Astrophysics and Sciences, at the California Institute of Technology.

  2. My father, since when is there a lack of gravity at a height so close to Earth? You must have meant zero weight and not a lack of gravity.

  3. It's a little different
    The sitting angle of the astronauts is optimally adjusted in order to pump blood to the head
    During the great pressures, whereas a fighter pilot has to be completely upright and in full personal function
    and back at clearly unreasonable angles.
    Astronauts are seated with their heads down and their feet up during liftoff.
    This way you can absorb even more than a fighter pilot.

  4. And in general, if someone already pays such an amount for 3 days in space, won't they serve him the best treats through beautiful flight attendants? Forget the poor slops served to NASA astronauts, here you must have caviar and silk, private rooms, and wall-to-wall treats. Implementing it is even more difficult than all the technical problems that await them.

  5. It seems as if the reference is to the "catapult" which currently only exists in science fiction books. As far as I can imagine this catapult should be close to the equator, and be very long. It does not seem practical that such a facility can be built and put into real working condition by 2012. At such a time, you can hardly build just a carpentry.

  6. And regarding the companies that offer the second service:
    "You will do something much simpler than Galactic Suite, it will just take off to the edge of space, allow the tourists a few minutes of zero gravity and return to Earth."

    What is "take off to the brink of space"? The only reason the people in these manned spaceships feel no gravity is because they are orbiting Earth in a circular orbit, and are physically falling in free fall.
    It's *not* because there's no gravity there or they're moving far enough away for it to be negligible (although that's what most people on the street think).
    An altitude of 400 km means 88% of the gravity we feel on the ground.
    I can just as well be inside an elevator falling in free fall and say that I experienced "no gravity" (which, by the way, some companies do - with planes that fall in free fall for several minutes).

    In short, these poor people are being worked on.

  7. Not 14G and not plaster. You were confused about factor 10.

    To go from km/h to meters per second, you need to divide by 3.6, which means that it is a speed of 277 meters per second.
    In twenty seconds from 0 speed to this speed it means an *average* acceleration of 13.8 meters per second squared.
    That is, 1.4 G.

  8. Arya, it's almost 14 G, that's also quite a lot and you probably need fighter pilot training to barely withstand it.

  9. Maglev is the method by which the high-speed trains work, but when developing spaceships it is necessary to test them much more than two years before the zero time, otherwise it is not safe, and in particular when it comes to new technology.

  10. Oops, I miscalculated. I was confused between an hour and a second. Long live the small difference.

  11. Acceleration from zero to a thousand km/h in twenty seconds isn't 2500g? Who or what can withstand that?

  12. oh why blacken?? (2)
    It sounds like a great idea with the magnets.. Obviously they will keep such technology a secret, it will be insanely profitable if it works...

  13. The first disaster to happen and even the smallest one will destroy all the economics of the matter for them

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