Four Spaniards will be the first to stay for 4 days at 450 kilometres from the Earth and the space tourism company introduced the first "spa" to be installed in space.
The Space Tourism Company Galactic Suite already has 38 reservations made by tourists who in 2012 will travel to the hotel to spend four days at 450 kilometres from the Earth.
The trip, which will cost 3 million euros, also includes 18 weeks of preparation for the tourists to acquire experience in space. This preparation will take place on an island in the Caribbean, where the participants can travel with their families.
Of the 38 reservations made through the company's website (
www.galacticsuite.com ) since January 2008, 4 belong to people of Spanish nationality, while the rest is divided between people from Russia, USA, United Arab Emirates, Australia, China and South America.
Reservations / Nationalities
- 4 / Spain
- 8 / United States
- 7 / Arab Emirates
- 6 / China
- 5 / Russia
- 5 / Australia
- 3 / South America
The first "SPA" in spaceThe company is now working in the programme of activities that tourists will undertake during the four days. "Tourists come to the hotel with all the necessary items to stay, as if they were staying at the most extreme refuge on earth", explained the founder and director of Galactic Suite, Xavier Claramunt. "This refuge will offer a mixed programme of reflection and exercise to seize the unique physical conditions encountered in space".
One of the most innovative experiences that tourists can experience is the bathroom in zero gravity. To that end, the team of engineers and architects of Galactic Suite have developed the spa space, the first spa to be installed at 450 kilometres from Earth, one of the modules of the hotel. At the spa, one will float inside a spherical container together with a water bubble of 20 litres.
The tourist, already trained to avoid the effects of water in a state of weightlessness, can play with the bubble dividing it into thousands of bubbles in a never-ending game. In addition, the transparent sphere may be shared with other guests.
Spaceport on an island in the CaribbeanThe new Galactic Spaceport Suite, the first commercial spaceport in the world, will be built on an island in the Caribbean
and the project will be signed by the company Equip architecture, also based in Barcelona. Galactic Suite does not rule out building new spaceports in the future in other countries around the world, in order to facilitate accessibility to other hotels built in space to as many people as possible.
The spaceport of Galactic Suite incorporates, for the first time, a revolutionary space launch system designed to maximize security and minimize the impact on the environment. The team of engineers and architects of the space tourism company has designed an infrastructure where the spacecraft will speed magnetic levitation and across a runway launch Maglev. This new technology is an accelerator suspended in the air over a road, being propelled forward by the repulsive (negative) and attractive (positive) forces of magnetism.
After reaching the speed of sound, the spacecraft is separated from the accelerator and Maglev will reach orbit (450 kilometres from the Earth) using its rocket engine. At the time of separation, the accelerator and brake will bring Maglev back to its starting point to prepare for the next launch. The trail will take off at a length of about 3 miles that will allow the spacecraft to accelerate 1000 kph (620 mph) in less than 20 seconds.
The founders of the company explained that the Maglev technology "will establish commercial flights into space toward our orbital hotels. The most expensive part of any journey to LEO are the first few seconds - leaving the ground. This technology is very competitive in its cost in respect to other forms of space transportation, and is inherently safe and sustainable. "
Space tourism companyGalactic Suite is a private space tourism company, founded in Barcelona in 2006, which aims to provide the first global experience of space tourism and which will combine an intensive programme of training astronauts to relax with a programme of activities on a tropical island as a process preparation to space travel.
Its ultimate goal is to make space tourism reach the general public to develop the first global chain of hotels in space. Under their plans, a first hotel in space could receive its first guests in 2012.
