The Voyager Station space hotel will produce its own artificial gravity. Onboard will be suites with toilets and showers, luxury villas, restaurants and even a basketball court. Rose Dykins reports
California-based Orbital Assembly has announced it will begin building the first-ever space hotel in 2025, which is expected to welcome its first guests in 2027.
The company’s Voyager Station is a rotating space station that will produce artificial gravity by increasing and decreasing its rate of rotation.
Gravity is essential for comfortable long-term habitation in space, and so the project has overcome this barrier by producing its own simulated gravity. As well as space tourists, the hotel is designed to welcome national space agencies conducting low-gravity research.
With its 200-metre diameter hub and spoke design, Voyager Station’s Outer Ring Truss (ORT) is the backbone of the space hotel. It will provide a provide mount for the hotel’s habitation modules, solar panels, radiators, and a rail transport system, and has an access tube set inside which people will use to move around.
Below the ORT are a series of connected pressurised modules that make up the Habitation Ring. Each 1,809.5 sqm module is 12 metres in diameter and 20 metres long, with two or three internal levels, depending on the facilities they house.
These include Air Water Power (AWP) Module; Gymnasium and Assembly (GA) Module; Kitchen, Restaurant and Bar (KRB Module; Crew Quarters Module; Privately owned modules used for villas hotels or commercial activity, and government-owned modules used for scientific research, training and staging facilities.
At least 12 of these modules have been designated as hotel rooms and suites. Thanks to Voyager Station’s simulated gravity, will can offer toilet facilities, showers, and beds that function similarly to guests’ experience on Earth – allowing greater comfort than a zero-gravity stay in space. The 30 sqm suites sleep two people, and can be rented for a three-day trip or a month.
For groups, Voyager Station will also have 500 sqm luxury villas for up to 16 people, with cooking facilities and three bathrooms. These can be booked for a week, a month or purchased outright.
Inside the hotel’s Gymnasium and Assembly module, guests will be able to experience what it’s like to play sports like basketball at one-sixth of the earth’s gravity environment, inside a seven-metre-high activity hall. On a lower level will be a gym with treadmills, weights and views looking out to the stars.
The hotel will also have a bar and a restaurant that will serve “space classics like Tang and freeze-dried ice cream”. Voyager’s restaurant will “rival the best venues on Earth”. Bi-weekly food deliveries will “ensure that every bite is fresh and delicious”.
Orbital Assembly is currently seeking investment for Voyager Station, which is a giant stride forwards in outerspace accommodation due to its artificial gravity, and the elevated guest experience this would provide.
If all goes to plan, 2021 could be the year space tourism takes off, with Blue Origin, Space X and Virgin Galactic all planning to launch their first missions with everyday cosmonauts by the end of this year.