Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2018

25 MAY-JUNE 2018 ASTRONAUTICS orators, cruises aboard Aurora Station will last 12 days and will cost each participant $9.5 million. To book this peerless holiday, however, a deposit of “just” $80,000 is enough, and the company is already gath- ering online subscriptions. Unlike the claustrophobic space stations hitherto put into orbit, Aurora Station will be equipped with large windows that will allow its inhabitants to fully enjoy the vi- sion of the night sky and the Earth. Of course, space tourists will have to at- tend special training for astronauts, which usually lasts a couple of years. Orion Span declares that it wants to concentrate that training into just 3 months, a choice made to reduce part of the costs with respect to the first tourist flights in history. On bal- ance, the ticket to Aurora Station is planned to cost less than half (or even less than a quarter) of those paid by Dennis Tito and six other space tourists, who be- tween 2001 and 2009 spent 20 to 40 million dollars to spend one to two weeks on board the International Space Station using Russ- ian Soyuz spacecraft as carriers. The idea of exploiting space for permanent tourism is anything but new: the first orbital hotel projects date back over a decade ago. Some may remember the Galactic Suite Space Resort, a project presented in 2007 by a company from Barcelona, which arose considerable interest both among interna- tional investors and candidate tourists signed to accommodate a few, very wealthy tourists. Called Aurora Station, the new project was presented by the Califor- nia company Orion Span on April 5 th at the Space 2.0 Summit in San Jose. This ex- clusive orbiting res- idence is currently planned to be built and taken into orbit by 2021 and receive tourists in 2022. According to the project presented by Orion Span, the basic structure of Aurora Station will be very similar to the fuselage of a private jet − a cylin- der no more than 15 meters long and almost 5 meters wide, for a volume that is about five times smaller than that offered by the Interna- tional Space Station. In that small space, ac- commodations will be provided for four passengers and two crew members, in ad- dition to a living area, avionics and more. Several auxiliary modules, attached later to the main body, will transform the small hotel into a sort of orbital hub. As stated by Frank Bunger, founder and CEO of Orion Span, and some of his collab- A bove there is a video re- leased by Galactic Suite Ltd. to pro- mote the Galactic Suite Space Resort. The project did not go much beyond this suggestive graphic presenta- tion, commentated by a persuasive voice. [Galactic Suite Ltd.] Alongside, an animated graphic of Aurora Station, the project that perhaps will open the way to space tourism. [Orion Span]