I find this story kind of incredible. The hotel itself seems feasible enough, but how in the world do they expect to get the cost down to less than $200,000 per person? And the comments are hilariously clueless. I particularly liked this one:
As much as I would love to go to space, I think it would get very boring after about 5 min of looking out the tiny window. you would be seeing the same view for 5 days, and who seriously is going to look out of the window the whole time? the rest of the time you’re spending it in cramped quarters. I really feel humans do not belong in outer space.
“Feel” is the operative word here. This is clearly a person who doesn’t do much in the way of real thinking.
I like this bit from the story:
“…Visitors can choose vertical or horizontal beds….”
Call me a nitpicker, but in zero gee the difference between a floor and a wall (and thus between a vertical and horizontal bed) is pretty meaningless.
“I really feel humans do not belong in outer space.”
Translation: “I wouldn’t enjoy it so no one else is allowed to.” Lots of people think that way, the impulse behind their thoughts completely unexamined and taken for granted. When you point this out to them they just stare at you blankly, like dogs looking up at you before returning to the vomit they were licking up.
A pair of Russian aerospace companies
So good to see free enterprise alive and well. I’m wondering about the price of $165k however. Does that include transportation to and from. Last I checked that was pretty expensive. I hate to be the wet blanket because I love the idea, but hotels have to be part of a bigger strategy or they aren’t going to happen.
“how in the world do they expect to get the cost down to less than $200,000”
I bet the in flight meal fees are killer – and don’t get me started on the luggage fees.
That whole paragraph is a mess of prevarication. I think I got the entire translation here plus or minus the occasional error.
As much as I would love to go to space
I wouldn’t like to go into space at all
I think it would get very boring after about 5 min of looking out the tiny window
How do I change the channel?
you would be seeing the same view for 5 days
They never moved the pop up tent when I told them to.
and who seriously is going to look out of the window the whole time?
That’s what space people do in the movies. Look out windows. They look so bored doing that.
the rest of the time you’re spending it in cramped quarters.
And then Joey rolled me up in my sleeping bag and I screamed.
I really feel humans do not belong in outer space.
I wouldn’t enjoy it so no one else is allowed to
Karl, most expensive toilets in the universe combined with five days in zero gee. You’ll be making bank.
Yet, these are probably the same people who would jump at the chance to fly to Hawaii for 5 days to meditate to the dolphin spirit with some “guru” who’s breathe smells like Tom’s organic toothpaste. One person’s hell, anothers heaven and all that.
Has Bigelow published any expected room rates yet?
Bigelow doesn’t rent rooms in space — he leases real estate.
how in the world do they expect to get the cost down to less than $200,000 per person?
As with the story last week, it looks like someone accidentally applied a double currency conversion.
Last week, Fox News reported, “it will cost $942,000 to visit the hotel. A five-day stay is expected to be about $157,000, plus the cost of the trip there: $785,000.”
This week, the price is being reported as $165,000 instead of $157,000. That fluctuation indicates that they are translating from rubles to dollars.
The problem, I suspect, is that the original source was giving figures that were already in dollars.
Assuming that is true, if we can cancel out the erroneous conversion, we get $27.3 million, $4.5 for the stay plus $22.8 million for the trip.
Those numbers are well within in the Russian ballpark.
you would be seeing the same view for 5 days,
This guy must be assuming a geosynchronous orbit, or else he doesn’t understand orbital mechanics. (Anyone care to guess which? 🙂
If you look at how much money the movie industry has invested in “Vomit Comet” flights just to give us a few minutes of floating cinematic fun I’m afraid it is inevitable that when a commercial facility is available the porn industry will be one of the pioneers. Now who’s going to clean that up?
jjs raises an important issue – where are the Russians going to find all the Mexican maids they’ll need to keep the place running? Also, in zero-G, how are they going to get the mints to stay on the pillows, or the pillows to stay on the beds for that matter? So many unanswered questions.
jjs, that’s a probability approaching unity. They’ve already made at least one porno (The Uranus Experiment) on parabolic flights that I know of – must do more research…
“I think it would get very boring after about 5 min of looking out the tiny window.”
Even with special brownies, it would get old after a while. There would need to be other activities.