Construction on the First-Ever Space Hotel Will Begin in 2025

Will it be able to dodge all the space debris? It doesn't say how much the rooms will cost. Would you book a room on the space hotel:

 

I would definitely do this. And I would pay a lot for it, if for no other reason than to support private industry expansion into space (though I would certainly also enjoy the experience!). I will however be very surprised if this sort of thing becomes affordable to anyone except the upper, upper, upper class (so, not me at all) anytime in my lifetime.

 

Space hotels in 4 years? I highly doubt it. We don't even have the technology or will to go back to the Moon...

 

We do have the technology. Its just really expensive. Trips to the moon no longer have much return on investment (there just isn't much more to learn there, relative to the cost of learning it). I suspect a space hotel could be highly profitable if done right.

 

No, there may not be many resources on the moon, but that's not the reason we need to go back there. A good reason to go back would be to establish an outpost from which we could launch future manned missions to Mars. The Moon has very little gravity and escape velocity compared to Earth and would take hardly any fuel to launch from. And on a trip to Mars you wouldn't have the room for a million tons of fuel.

 

I'd much rather we build an outpost on the Moon and get the hang of it and work out all the bugs before going to Mars and building the first one and getting our asses handed to us in a catastrophe from which the astronauts have no hope of rescue or return...

 

The station mentioned in OP orbits earth. Far easier to reach, maintain and support than one on Mars or even the moon. I do agree that a jumpoff station on the moon would be beneficial toward eventually reaching mars. I also think more infrastructure in orbit around earth will benefit further expansion toward both the moon and mars.

 

Yes, an orbital shipyard would indeed come in handy...

 

I would do it in a heartbeat if I could afford it!!

 

Leaving Earth's gravity is always required for going to Mars.

Adding the requirement to both land on the Moon and then leave the Moon's gravity doesn't make anything cheaper, easier, faster or safer.

 

That is the big question, I would think.

The ability of SpaceX to land rocket stages back on Earth for reuse has brought down the cost of going to the space station from $80M to $55M per person. An E-ticket ride to be sure.

Then, one might subtract for being at a lower orbit and then add to the ticket price for defraying the cost of the hotel, the cost of staff and materials transport, monthly station keeping to stop the orbit from decaying (once per month for the space station), profit, etc.

I'd love to see their financial model.

 

I see the moon more like Antarctica. There could be a tiny station there with the sole purpose of in depth studying of the Moon. There isn't any other known reason to be there. The same is true for Mars.

However, I think your space station direction is major.

Our rockets are NEVER going to be big enough to launch all the kinds of stuff we want in space. Look at what has happened to the James Web telescope. It had to get folded so seriously that it has been bloody murder to reach any confidence that it can unfurl. And, it if doesn't, it is total garbage that can not be fixed. And, it the relatively small size it is purely because of launch constraints.

We need to assemble stuff in space, where the design can be based on mission and space requirements, not launch requirements.

 

Agreed. Tho I see some potential benefits to the moon:

-solid ground which makes certain types of construction easier to maintain (because big things need big stabilizing/maneuvering thrusters otherwise)
-a nice thick 'shield' of dirt, if we build stuff subterranean (or would that be sublunanean?)
-building materials and possibly even fuel with much less energy requirements to get spaceborn, if we can figure out how to process anything useful out of moon dirt, which I figure we prolly will eventually

 

I know it sounds good.

However, even when we launch from the Moon, the payload would still have to be designed for the serious launch constraints. We should want is to be free of launch requirements - focusing only on the mission and the environment of space.

Of course, any station on the Moon will need those things you mention, so that's important.

If it turns out there is something on the Moon that we want in space, great! Right now, everything we need is more available on Earth. Plus, in space maybe what we need is more likely to be found on asteroids or something.

Dream: space junk becomes a resource. Sorry - just a dream!

 

Oh, ya, i don't mean we need anything on the moon now. Long way to go first.

 

Finding stuff off-Earth that we can use or even seriously need will happen, I think, and it will be amazing!

With greater activity in space, I hope costs come down.

 

They're taking reservations:

 

damn, that’s awesome. I reeeaaally hope it somehow becomes affordable to get up there in my lifetime.

 

here, actually. must create profile first
Voyager Station

 

The Perseverence rover on Mars has a really interesting experiment in extracting oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, which is more than 95% CO2.

It can break apart CO2 (which is pretty much all the Mars atosphere) into CO and O2.

Obviously, the oxygen has huge numbers of potential uses. But, even the CO is useful as with hydrogen it can be turned into rocket fuel.

It's tricky because MOXIE will get REALLY hot, requiring the very best insulation that humans can produce so it doesn't melt down Perseverence.

Also, it has to be smart enough not to steal that other oxygen, leaving carbon, because the carbon would incapacitate the device. So, there is actual AI needed to control the unit.

And, it can run for about an hour at a time, creating 10 grams of oxygen.

My guess is that units of the future would require a nuclear based power source as it requires 300 Watts.

BUT - what a great experiment!! Instead of having to dig up soil and process it to get the moisture and then splitting oxygen out of that water, it just sucks in atmosphere and cracks that!

 

So, flying half way around the planet to sit by a pool for a fortnight isn't bad enough for the environment now people have to holiday in space.
Disgusting hedonism for the rich that we will all have to pay the price for.

https://eos.org/features/the-coming-surge-of-rocket-emissions

 

I am not a scientist so how much is 10 grams of O2 in English? It seems that the Martian atmosphere would have to be compressed. I could imagine a habitat built by robotics before men get there. But this is just speculation.

 

Great questions.

After a brief excursion through the internet I'm going to dodge on figuring out how many grams of gaseous oxygen a human would consume in a day.

But, I think it's safe to say that that any manned mission to Mars where the oxygen on Mars would be enough to sustain the lives of a small number of humans would require a MOXIE type device to be scaled up HUGELY.

As an experiment, it hits me as a terrific possible direction - better than anything I've heard of to date.

 

......

 

11,000 liters of air a day. That is a lot of grams of O2.