Holidays in space

Holidays in space

When SpaceShipOne took off on June 21, 2004, as did the first private space flight. With that flight, Burt Rutan's budget for space rocket ousted the government monopoly on space flight, leaving analysts with the teeth long predicted an era of private space travel, with travel and hotels in orbit beyond the sky. Futrono, has predicted that around 12,000 people who hire these services in the year 2020.

Futrono did a survey of wealthy Americans as those picaba curiosity to experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth from space. Assumed that competition would drop the ticket prices of U.S. $ 100,000 (more than EUR 82,800) to 50,000 USD (more than EUR 41,400) in 2021.

The tourists who dream of giving a tour of the area have already paid large sums of money for those early flights. The money goes to companies like Rutan's Scaled Composites to compete for the prize of $ 10 million Ansari X The prize will be awarded to the first orbital space flight in our viable and reusable.

"It was really exciting to know that this could be possible," said Wimmer, a Dane living in London who wants to and can afford these trips. Some believe it will not have to wait long. Jim Benson of SpaceDev, believes could be one such flight in 2008.

25 times the speed of sound

At these speeds in space, will also provide amenities to tourists. A hotel in Las Vegas will. Bigelow, the hotel chain Budget Suites of America, has already invested $ 500 million to expand its business outside the planet. Its facilities allow 330 cubic meters for tourists and researchers from industry.

These rooms inflatable polymer layers have a thickness of 30 cm and contain layers of Kevlar? material used in bulletproof vests? that provide protection against micrometeorites, radiation and space debris. Is trying to inflate more than they should shoot modules and high-speed projectiles against the carrier.

Economies of scale

They could fly and nautilus independent space stations or connected to a compartment for larger hotels. Bigelow sees economies of scale as a key to profitability and plans to sell hotels in space to their rivals for 100 million dollars each.

If all goes well with the tests in orbit, a third module pilot of the actual size will be launched late next year. Bigelow plans to launch the first habitable Nautile in 2008, like SpaceDev, which hopes to have its first orbital flight time.

Meanwhile, Starzyk did not believe that commercial vehicles will be in orbit as early space flights have always been imagined by dreamers who ventured to predict the impossible. Time will tell if they were right.