March 28, 2024

SPACE: The final hotel frontier

Aug. 16, 2006
So you’ve “been there and done that”? Seen and done everything and have the dough to say the sky’s the limit on your next vacation? How about space?
While NASA struggles to complete a space station with what remains of its 20-year-old shuttle fleet, private investors are forging ahead with their own money. It’s a strange partnership: American and British entrepreneurs have teamed up with Russia to convert some of those menacing ICBMs, left over from the cold war, to civilian use.
On July 12 Bigelow Aerospace, using money from the sale of a chain of U.S. hotels, launched an inflatable space module to test the feasibility of what is to become a tourist attraction for the rich. Bigelow Aerospace, located in Las Vegas, is gambling on a plan to launch a string of sausage-like space modules in five years to accommodate space tourists.
They’ve already had successful launchings of smaller prototypes. The latest made use of a revamped Soviet ICBM, a Kosmotras Dnepr rocket launched from the Dombarovsky missile base in Siberia.
What better use to make of an obsolete deadly weapon? And to think we have all those nuclear-armed ICBMs going to waste down in bunkers under cornfields in the Midwest. We’re missing the boat.
The idea of an inflatable space craft isn’t new. It was explored by NASA in 1960 with an inflatable balloon used to bounce signals.
We’ve already seen how Spaceship One rocketed into space twice to collect a $10 million prize. The next step in that direction is a $50 million prize for someone who can ferry five passengers to a height of 250 miles.
They’ll have to fly a bit higher to reach the proposed Nautilus space hotel, Genesis I. The current test ship, launched July 12, is orbiting at an altitude of 550 kilometers. It’s an inflatable and looks something like a big watermelon. With a skin that includes super-strong Vectran and Kevlar materials capable of withstanding collision with some space junk and small meteorites, it maintains an internal temperature of 24 degrees. That’s not exactly summer, but it’s warmer than our Upper Peninsula winters.
Getting the thing folded up inside a rocket warhead and then inflating once it reaches orbit altitude it is quite a trick, but it has been done successfully. Future models will carry some living creatures like scorpions to make sure a livable habitat is possible. Backers don’t want to take a chance with people just yet. They also plan to carry up photographs and other souvenirs which, once brought back, will have huge value as conversation pieces and collectibles for people who can afford that sort of thing.
Of course, Bigelow’s intention is to make space travel affordable for ordinary folks, not just multimillionaires capable of plunking down $500 million to establish a hotel in space. Bigelow also plans to launch, by 2010, an orbital resort, tentatively called Skywalker. If all goes well the plan is to sell space hotel modules similar to Nautilus for $100 million apiece. This isn’t going to be your local motel where they leave the light on for you. Until Buck Rogers sci-fi of the 1940’s becomes a reality you won’t be dropping up to Skywalker in your own Model T spacecraft.
The fledgling group of space entrepreneurs is reminiscent of the early days of flying when geniuses like Howard Hughes put their efforts and their money into visionary projects. It’s people like that who have in recent years flown around the world without refueling, flown a balloon around the world, and reached into space on Spaceship One without the use of tax dollars. These are exciting, hopeful projects. Though this writer may never live to see them, they are a refreshing change from unrelenting news stories of war and mayhem. Keep your eye on the horizon, not on your feet, and aim high.

Visit the web site www.hu.mtu.edu/~hlsachs where you can listen to two stories, read a third, read reviews, and find links to the publishers of my books.

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