Company plans to start building private Voyager space station with artificial gravity in 2025

[editor]

I'll be absolutely amazed if this thing ever happens

Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC) recently unveiled new details about its ambitious Voyager Station, which is projected to be the first commercial space station operating with artificial gravity.

Its team of skilled NASA veterans, pilots, engineers and architects intends to assemble a "space hotel" in low Earth orbit that rotates fast enough to generate artificial gravity for vacationers, scientists, astronauts educators and anyone else who wants to experience off-Earth living.

Voyager Station is patterned after concepts imagined by legendary rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, one of the main orchestrators of NASA's Apollo program. The 650-foot-wide (200 meters) wheel-shaped habitat will spin with an angular velocity high enough to create moon-like levels of artificial gravity for occupants.

Company plans to start building private Voyager space station with artificial gravity in 2025

Voyager Station will be able to accommodate 400 guests, its builders say.

www.space.com

 

[weltweit]

Wonder how realistic it is?

And a bit lacking in ambition if it is just going to orbit earth.

 

[Mation]

Wow x millions and gazillions!

I always feel that everything that has been thought of (as a species) will eventually be done.

How fucking exciting to live in a time when anyone is actually, really and truly planning the first space station with artificial gravity.

goes off to find out about how educators might get aboard without paying

 

[Limejuice]

Did anyone else start hearing The Blue Danube Waltz?

 

[NoXion]

Wonder how realistic it is?

And a bit lacking in ambition if it is just going to orbit earth.

Considering that there are currently no privately operated space stations in orbit, let alone any stations with artificial gravity at all, I'd say that it's plenty ambitious. Bear in mind that there is currently no orbital infrastructure capable of supporting construction efforts in deep space, meaning that everything would have to be boosted into orbit at significant cost. The cheapest launch option currently available is the Falcon 9 v1.2 which gets 22.8 metric tons into LEO at a cost of about 2,720$/kg

I thought that the concept design looked familiar, and it is indeed the same people who proposed the Gateway Station.

What's interesting about this proposal is the thought given towards construction. A modular approach is exactly the kind of thing needed for mass manufacture.

 

[weltweit]

Considering that there are currently no privately operated space stations in orbit, let alone any stations with artificial gravity at all, I'd say that it's plenty ambitious. Bear in mind that there is currently no orbital infrastructure capable of supporting construction efforts in deep space, meaning that everything would have to be boosted into orbit at significant cost. The cheapest launch option currently available is the Falcon 9 v1.2 which gets 22.8 metric tons into LEO at a cost of about 2,720$/kg

Yes, it will be a first. But still, Musk is talking about colonising Mars and this thing will just be hanging about in Earth's orbit. Fine for testing theories, Iain M Banks envisioned somewhat larger orbital worlds, if this is a stage towards such things then fine.

I thought that the concept design looked familiar, and it is indeed the same people who proposed the Gateway Station.

What's interesting about this proposal is the thought given towards construction. A modular approach is exactly the kind of thing needed for mass manufacture.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

But how will they get back from the delta quadrant?


oh wait it's a space station. They'll just be there to guard the wormhole.


Star Trek joke for those who are puzzled.

 

[NoXion]

Yes, it will be a first. But still, Musk is talking about colonising Mars and this thing will just be hanging about in Earth's orbit. Fine for testing theories, Iain M Banks envisioned somewhat larger orbital worlds, if this is a stage towards such things then fine.

Going to a space hotel in LEO will be cheaper and would take a whole lot less time than going all the way to Mars. It takes at least six months just to make the trip from Earth to Mars. How many people do you know, who are going to have the time to take twelve months off just for the trip? Especially since the departure and arrival times will be limited to specific periods, AKA Martian Tourist Season. On the other hand, a hotel in Earth orbit can be visited over the course of a single weekend, at any time of the year. On that basis, I think that weekend bookings in this space hotel will sell a lot quicker than tickets for a twelve-month round trip to a camp site run by Elon Musk in an empty desert.

I'm not convinced that Musk has given much if any serious thought to his plans for what do actually do on Mars when/if he eventually gets there (his whole approach reminds me of a dog chasing a car). It's easy for him to say "set up a colony", since talk is always cheaper than engineering, but what does that actually entail? Because at the moment we don't even have Antarctica-style scientific outposts on any other worlds, never mind any place that significant numbers of tourists might actually want to visit. A hotel in LEO would have almost all of the unique selling points of a trip to Mars, but without having to spend many months inside a confined space to get there and back.

 

[kabbes]

This has no commercial viability. They couldn’t even make the Eurotunnel work commercially — they eventually had to write off its debts to be able to sell it — and that was a lot cheaper and and a use case for literally thousands of people per day. For every billion they spend, they’re going to need to commercially justify that with a good 50m in profit per year, or a million a week after ongoing costs, so likely more like 5m in income per week just for the hotel based on net net profit rates of 20% (which is arguably optimistic). I don’t know how many people it will hold but I’ll be surprised if it gets to 100, which would mean they need to take income of £50,000 per person for a week per billion of infrastructure spend. And how many billions would this cost? 100bn? Is there that much of a market for people spending £5m for a week’s holiday (excluding costs of actually getting there)?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Seems like a good way to get loads of investment from unhinged billionaires who want first dibs on getting off the planet they've wrecked, then siphon of assets into your own pockets for a few years before quietly winding the whole thing up. Won't be the first or last such scheme.

 

[Aladdin]

Did anyone else start hearing The Blue Danube Waltz?

Totally derailed now. I'm off to watch 2001 Space Odyssey

 

[nogojones]

Seems like a good way to get loads of investment from unhinged billionaires who want first dibs on getting off the planet they've wrecked, then siphon of assets into your own pockets for a few years before quietly winding the whole thing up. Won't be the first or last such scheme.

This. I hope they all get screwed hard

 

[DotCommunist]

Even in a space hotel you're still going to be at risk from cosmic radiation right? and muscles atrophying. Space People are all hardy sorts at the minute, how long do we recon a corpulent captain of industry could stay up before his heart goes pop.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Even in a space hotel you're still going to be at risk from cosmic radiation right? and muscles atrophying. Space People are all hardy sorts at the minute, how long do we recon a corpulent captain of industry could stay up before his heart goes pop.

Surviving the launch from Earth may be the riskiest bit tbh.

 

[NoXion]

Even in a space hotel you're still going to be at risk from cosmic radiation right? and muscles atrophying. Space People are all hardy sorts at the minute, how long do we recon a corpulent captain of industry could stay up before his heart goes pop.

Depends on the length of exposure, for both radiation and free-fall conditions.

Astronauts on board the ISS are in Low Earth Orbit (which is where I presume they propose to locate this hotel), so they are still mostly within the Earth's protective magnetosphere, and are thus protected from solar storms, which are the biggest danger radiation-wise in space. After that the biggest concern is cosmic rays, but given that a space station doesn't need to move around much, the extra mass required by adequate shielding (which could be provided by storing water in the skin of the station) would not be as prohibitive as it would for a spaceship headed to Mars. If the background radiation levels within the station can be lowered to Earth's background levels by shielding, and I see no good reason why it could not, then people could stay in orbit for as long as they want without increasing their risk of cancer.

As for gravity, this station is going to spin to provide its own gravity, apparently at levels comparable to that of the Moon (0.166g). While we have extensive data about the physiological impact of complete free-fall, thanks to extended ISS missions, we have precious little human data about the impact of partial gravity. My suspicion is that Lunar gravity isn't good enough to prevent long-term health impacts, although Mars/Mercury gravity (0.38g) might be good enough, and I would be very surprised if Venus gravity (0.9g) isn't good enough. I don't think that spending a week or even a month in reduced gravity is going to be a major health hazard unless one is already significantly unfit.

This is not medical advice. Consult your doctor before heading off-world.

 

[teuchter]

What's the point of going to a space hotel if I'm not going to be weightless when I get there? I want to be able to float down the corridor for dinner, and that sort of thing.

 

[NoXion]

What's the point of going to a space hotel if I'm not going to be weightless when I get there? I want to be able to float down the corridor for dinner, and that sort of thing.

The elegance of a wheel station design is that you get to choose what level of gravity you want. If you want free-fall, hang out in the hub area. If you want the strongest gravity available on the station, go to somewhere on the outer rim.

Gravity, even if it's at Lunar levels, will make things like cooking, eating, washing, and going to the toilet a whole lot easier and less messy. Trying to poo in a free-fall toilet is probably the kind of experience that most people will only want to try once.

 

[ferrelhadley]

Lol.
I will leave this to the expert.

 

[NoXion]

Lol.
I will leave this to the expert.

Why do you have to be such a snide fucking cunt? I'm just sharing what I've taught myself, because this is the kind of subject that fascinates me and they didn't teach it at any school that I could afford to go to. If you've got any relevant insight, then by all means please bless the rest of us with it. Otherwise shut your fucking face you absolute prick.