Hotel in space…perhaps budget prices?
For those who wondered what the multi-billion dollar space program was all about, here’s the answer: Hotelier Robert Bigelow, owner of Budget Suites of America, wants to open a new space station by 2016 that could lodge up to a dozen guests.
It may sound far-fetched, but Bigelow already has put two prototypes into orbit and is in talks with NASA about attaching one of his modules to the International Space Station.
"This will be the time when we see which countries are the ones that have the power to take control of mankind’s future," wrote Bigelow recently.
The venture has supporters talking about the dawn of a new commercial space age. But working against Bigelow — besides the laws of physics — are decades of broken promises from space entrepreneurs and the elusiveness of making a profit beyond Earth’s gravity, reports The Orlando Sentinel.
"The upcoming golden age of commercial space has been ‘next year’ for the last 40 years," said James Lewis, a technology expert at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies.
NASA is scheduled to retire the space shuttle in a few more months. With no government-run successor likely for the next six years — at least — commercial space companies such as Bigelow Aerospace may represent the only chance for the U.S. to continue the legacy of Apollo, says the newspaper
By David Wilkening
David
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