The world that Stanley Kubrick envisioned in “2001: A Space Odyssey” looks like it was only about 24 years ahead of schedule. That’s if The Von Braun Space Station opens as planned in 2025.
The Gateway Foundation is planning to build the galaxy’s first space hotel and it will have bars, a movie theater, beautiful interiors, guest rooms, and something you can’t usually find in space: gravity.
The Von Braun space station will be built using similar technology to the International Space Station (ISS). But with one important difference – artificial gravity.
The space station will be built according to plans by Werner von Braun that he created back in 1950.
Von Braun was a German engineer in Nazi Germany who surrendered to U.S. forces in 1945. Upon emigrating to the U.S., Von Braun would become the director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Gateway believes that now is the best time to start planning such a dramatic project because there has been an increase in companies looking to provide affordable launch services. Plus, NASA is making a big push to commercialize space.
The space station will be a 190-meter wheel that spins through space to create a gravitational force.
The wheel will have 24 individual modules around its perimeter that will be guest rooms and other accommodations. The space station will be able to house around 400 people at a time.
Gateway hopes that the station will have about 100 tourists visiting per week when it opens.
Some of the modules will be used by government agencies for research while others will be sold like condos or time-share units.
“There will also be many of the things you see on a cruise ship,” Tim Alatorre, the project’s designer, told Deezen.
While the station will be space-age, that doesn’t mean it won’t be comfortable. “In the movie ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ Stanley Kubrick’s Space Station 5 is a sterile, white, museum-like hotel,” explained Alatorre.
“While it made for a clearly futuristic feeling in the movie, in reality, it wasn’t a very inviting space. As humans, we innately connect to natural materials and colors.” One of the challenges is creating interiors made from easy-to-clean and light-weight materials.
Because the space station will have artificial gravity it won’t be as challenging to navigate as the ISS.
People will be able to sleep laying down, use the toilet as they do back on Earth, and food will be served in traditional containers.
Large parts of the space station, such as the habitation modules will be constructed on Earth, but most of it will be assembled in space by drones and robots. “This is actually the most important part, because we will learn how to build massive structures in space from what we learn building the Von Braun Station,” Alatorre said.
The Von Braun Space station is just the first step in a space-wide chain of hotels Gateway Foundation is planning. It hopes to open a larger station that can accommodate up to 1400 people five years after the Van Braun.
Gateway hopes that eventually, space tourism will be an option for people of all income levels and not just the super-rich.
“Because the overall costs are still so high most people assume that space tourism will only be available to the super-rich, and while I think this will be true for the next several years, the Gateway Foundation has a goal of making space travel open to everyone.”
Ultimately, the Gateway Foundation wants to construct a “starship culture” where people live and work in space just as they do on Earth.
