Looks like Bigelow Aerospace has some new competition. A company called Galactic Suite has plans to build an orbiting hotel by 2012. Details are a bit sparse, but they already have $3 billion in funding to make it happen:
Galactic Suite began as a hobby for former aerospace engineer Claramunt, until a space enthusiast decided to make the science fiction fantasy a reality by fronting most of the $3 billion needed to build the hotel.
An American company intent on colonizing Mars, which sees Galaxy Suite as a first step, has since come on board, and private investors from Japan, the United States and the United Arab Emirates are in talks.
The company’s blog has a few early design ideas, but no details on how they’re actually hoping to get to orbit.
Not sure how much competition to Bigelow they really are, and I also have doubts about their $3 billion funding figure. I think we need more proof than their word.
Bigelow has:
- A manufacturing plans currently building the modules for its stations
- A corporate structure
- Two test modules currently in space
- A concrete business plan
- More than 100 employees
Galactic Suite has:
- A Web site with nice illustrations. Though its strange title font looks like it was done in Microsoft Paint.
This seems like the Space Island Group which also has little more than a nice Web site and fancy illustrations. Like SIG, Galactic Suite also seems to indicate it would use the Space Shuttle for construction, which would be news to NASA, which plans to put the orbiters in the Smithsonian by 2010. SIG also claims to have billions in potential investment, though that’s a claim they’ve been making for years.
Seems like more vaporware to me. I’d rather put my money on Bigelow to build the first private space station.
John: Well put, and all good points. I was going to say something about the prominent use of Space Shuttle images, but I figured it was just artistic license.
Then again, artistic license and safe space travel don’t really go together…
I was going to say the same thing. But more over, I was going to mention that the flimsy looking materials they’re using don’t compare to the well researched, well put together craft being created by the REAL company, Bigelow Aerospace.