Space hotel says it's on schedule to open in 2012, Estimated cost is 4.4M for 3 Days

BARCELONA, Spain - A company behind plans to open the first hotel in space says it is on target to accept its first paying guests in 2012 despite critics questioning the investment and time frame for the multi-billion dollar project.

The Barcelona-based architects of The Galactic Suite Space Resort say it will cost $4.4 million for a three-night stay at the hotel, with this price including an eight-week training course on a tropical island.

During their stay, guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and travel around the world every 80 minutes. They would wear Velcro suits so they can crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

Galactic Suite Ltd, set up in 2007, hopes to start its project with a single pod in orbit 280 miles above the earth, with the capacity to hold four guests and two astronaut-pilots.

It will take a day and a half to reach the pod — which Claramunt compared to a mountain retreat, with no staff to greet the traveler

More than 200 people have expressed an interest in traveling to the space hotel and at least 43 people have already reserved.

More of this article is here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33579859/ns/te...pace/?GT1=43001

Sounds awesome, but you need to own a money tree and/or be an alchemist to afford to do that...>.>

Why are multi-billion dollar projects being directed towards space when here on Earth we have enough economic problems to deal with?

I find this ridiculous, but then again, I'm not interested in any of these kinds of projects.

Because it's corporations. One corporation is spending it's money to start up this hotel, and other CEOs and Millionaires are lining up to spend their money. You forget that this news affects only about .005% percent of the world (if that) and those people aren't hurting at all with the way the economy is right now...

Besides, Space Exploration is a valid thing to spend money on. Many devices we take in vain now were in some way or other brought forth because of the need to have them for space agencies such as NASA. Notable contributions are Teflon, Fiber-Networks, and computers (The comp. on the Apollo 11 had as much computing power as a $.99 calculator today and THAT was revolutionary at the time).

The by-products of spending that kind of money yields knowledge and helps make the production of certain materials cheaper. Spending money to increase knowledge is almost always a good thing...

-K-