Tourists of the future might be able to select "low Earth orbit" as a destination when looking for their next relaxing getaway – if they can foot the multimillion-dollar bill, that is.
Orion Span, a Texas startup, is accepting $80,000 deposits for future visits to its planned "luxury space hotel" named Aurora Station. The total price for a 12-day stay, including launch services to the modular station: $9.5 million.
The hotel can host six people at a time beginning in 2022, the company said, including its two crew members and would feature windows, a "holodeck" with a virtual reality experience, and the ability for guests to grow their own food, to name a few.
"As Aurora Station continues to grow with market demand, we will also sell space condos – your own capacity aboard Aurora Station and future space stations to visit, sublease, or one day live in as you wish," Orion Span CEO Frank Bunger said in a post this week on the company's website.
Spaceflight also requires training, so future guests will have to complete the three-month "Orion Span Astronaut Certification" program, part of which would be completed online before traveling to Houston.
There has, however, been no discussion of which launch services provider – SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin or others – would lift the station's parts to orbit.
