When you really want to get away from it all, a remote luxury hotel with more stars than you could possibly count sounds like just the ticket.
And one US startup is indeed planning to build a resort on the Moon, ready to receive guests in six years. Galactic Resources Utilization (GRU) Space is currently asking hopeful space tourists to pay an €865,000 deposit to secure a five-night stay, which may end up costing more than €8.6million in total.
Founder Skyler Chan, 22, believes the hotel will allow humans to colonise the Moon, and eventually Mars. The firm is backed by investors from Elon Musk’s SpaceX and computer giant Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company.
Inside the plans for the very first hotel on the Moon by 2032 – GRU Space’s lunar hotel would be the first ever permanent off-Earth structure built in history. Pic: GRU Space
Its initial plan is to construct an inflatable space hotel on Earth and land it on the lunar surface in 2032. The structure will accommodate four guests, who will stay in rooms overlooking the stars for five nights.
It will be equipped with air recycling and oxygen generation, water recycling, temperature control, emergency escape system and radiation shelter for solar storms. It will be designed to operate for ten years, and the firm says guests will be offered experiences such as Moonwalking, rover driving – and low-gravity golf.
Mr Chen said that a future lunar hotel will be much larger, able to accommodate up to ten guests, and built with bricks and concrete made from materials found on the Moon’s surface.
Inside the plans for the very first hotel on the Moon by 2032 – GRU Space’s lunar hotel would be the first ever permanent off-Earth structure built in history. Pic: GRU Space
‘Humanity’s transition to a space-faring species is not a question of if, but when,’ Mr Chen said. However, publicly funded bodies such as Nasa are too risk-averse to think about the long-term future of life in space, he said. It came as four astronauts yesterday returned safely to Earth after a medical evacuation from the International Space Station.
Nasa’s Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego. It is not known who fell ill, but Nasa said they are ‘fine right now, in good spirits and going throug