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Listen, The Space Hotel is Not Going to Open in 2012

We linked to the news that the very first Space Hotel would open in 2012 in our hotel news briefs on Monday. That's because we didn't think something so far-fetched really merited an entire post but today we thought we'd put our thoughts out there on the Galactic Suite Space Resort.

For starters, it's not going to open in 2012. Does anyone not remember Lance Bass' dream to go to outer space? Look how well that turned out. And most ambitious hotel plans never make their opening date so we're gonna go ahead and say that outer space probably has some unique factors that could contribute to a delay.

Second, let's talk about price. Sure, Russian billionaires may have the money to spend $4.4 million on three nights in space but what happens when this space hotel runs out of Russian billionaires? (Not so coincidentally a Russian billionaire is financing this project.)

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Tags: Hotel News Briefs / Space Hotels / Chris Noth / Britney Spears / Jamie-Lynn Separs / → All Tags

Mice Check-in to a Space Hotel Before Humans Do

There's always been a lot of talk about Space Hotels opening in the near future but it looks like mice--yes, mice--have beaten us humans to the Final Frontier.

MSNBC reports that six mice are shacking up in a little "hotel" inside an international space station:

The small rodents are part of an Italian study investigating the effects of bone loss in space, and researchers have set the mice up in orbital style. "Basically, it's a little hotel," said Joe Delai, Discovery's payload manager, of the cages holding the space mice. "They have a room and a place to eat and sleep."

The mice will stay in their space hotel for three months. The longest any other mouse has lived in space before is 30 days. Other mice have gone on expeditions within space shuttles before but this will be the longest stay in space, proper. Hopefully, keys to the minibar have been confiscated.

In other news:
· The Roosevelt New Orleans Bringing Hope Back to the City [NPR]
· Chris Noth DJs at the Fasano Hotel [NY Post]
· We're Not the Only Ones Who Love Tree Hotels [ABC News]
· Jamie-Lynn and Britney Spears Takes Their Babies to the Mandarin Oriental Miami [JustJared]

Tags: Space Hotels / Budget Suites / Richard Branson / Robert Bigelow / Jeff Bezos / → All Tags

Will a Hotelier With a Passion for Zero Gravity Take Us to Outer Space?

It's looking more likely all the time that space tourism will be led by private industry, not slow-moving NASA. So who better to get the infrastructure going than a hotel man?

The November issue of Wired magazine has an feature story on Robert Bigelow, billionaire founder of the Budget Suites hotel chain. Turns out he is a bit of a space nut, living in Nevada and owning a chunk of land where UFOs have been sighted. He has been pouring his fortune into Bigelow Aerospace, a company that is setting up innovative space stations that inflate in orbit instead of having to launch in pieces.

You won't find the story online, unfortunately. Despite the magazine's name, most Wired stories can only be found in old fashioned print on ink. The big takeaway though is that space hotels are not first on the list in terms of projects for the stations. First of all, there's not that much money in it. Tenants looking to do science experiments and zero-gravity manufacturing are going to pony up a lot more money than zillionaires who want to brag they ordered room service while gazing down at the Earth.

Once Richard Branson or Jeff Bezos gets a space shuttle for tourists going, however, Bigelow Aerospace's modules can be configured to suit any purpose. So later we could see hotel suites--but definitely not Budget Suites.

Related Stories:
· Bigelow Aerospace [Official Site]
· Space Hotels [HotelChatter]
· Space Travel/Tourism [Jaunted]

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Outerspacephile Richard Branson Plans a Space Hotel

While we're all gradually accepting that space travel is an inevitable part of the tourist world, somehow the idea of a space hotel hasn't quite got us convinced. But billionaire and CEO of Virgin Airlines Richard Branson is already planning his hotel out of this world. In his own words, this space hotel:

... will go round the Moon -- it's easier to build one that is not actually on the Moon's surface. We believe we can programme a two-man spaceship, with a bubble on the top, so we can send you off from the hotel, programme you to be a few hundred feet above the Moon, and you will skim the Moon's surface before going back into the hotel. We hope that this will happen in my lifetime.

Whether a near-the-moon hotel will also have a spa, sauna, buffet breakfast, WiFi access and all the comforts we expect is not clear, but perhaps the whole "moon skim" thing is supposed to satisfy our quest for adventure.

If Branson's moon hotel is not what you want to save your bucks for, then perhaps his next venture will interest you more: a Balinese-style eco-resort on the island he's just acquired in the British Virgin Islands--Moskito Island. He has, however, decided to change its name to Mojito. Smart man.

Related Stories:
· Race for Space [Times UK]
· Spaceship Hotel, Brazil [HotelChatter]