The World’s First Space Hotel is Opening in 2022—and Already Taking Reservations

Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey debuted back in 1968, a full year before Neil Armstrong would take man’s first steps on the moon. In the film, space travel is luxurious and routine—commercial spaceships are outfitted like jetliners, with primped-up stewardesses and passengers more engrossed in their in-flight meals and entertainment than the cosmos just a window seat’s view away.

More than fifty years since the first moon landing, we have yet to deliver a human being to another planet. The concept of space tourism—one that’s garnered more than a few April Fool’s jokes over the years—still seems like a crazy fantasy.

That notion is about to change.

A startup called Orion Span has announced that by 2022—a mere four years away—they will have successfully launched and opened the “Aurora Station” hotel 200 miles above the earth’s surface.

If you are among the lucky few who can afford the rack rate, which starts at a cool $9.5 million for 12 days, your experience will be an intimate one. Just four paying guests, plus two crew members, will be aboard the spacecraft, whose interior size is comparable to that of a large private jet. (They have plans to enlarge the space over time.)

For paying guests, however, coughing over the dough is just the beginning. A three-month training program is required prior to takeoff—no doubt to prepare for sustained weightlessness and the G-forces experienced during take-off.

Reservations are disappearing fast. The first four months have already been booked with hefty $80,000 deposits. A small price to pay (wink, wink), to be among the first non-astronauts to exit Earth’s atmosphere.

Want more?

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