Fed II Star - April 30, 2006

REAL LIFE NEWS: HOTEL IN SPACE

Taking space tourism quite literally to a new level, a Las Vegas hotelier has big plans for an inflatable space motel. He intends to test some one-third scale versions of his prototype low-Earth orbit habitats - which he has named Genesis. Roger Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace has secured space aboard two Russian rockets to get his test versions into orbit, where they will stay for several years to allow full testing.

The project is based on a NASA design called "TransHab" which was scrapped. The full version will offer 330 cubic metres of flying hotel, protected from space debris by a "30-centimetre-thick multilayered polymer and Kevlar hull." The whole thing apparently opens up like a concertina when deployed in space. As Mike Gold, a company spokesman, explained: "There has never been a system like this in microgravity and we need to know if it will work."

If it does work, maybe it'll be possible to take a holiday in zero-g before too long!

Get more details from Bigelow Aerospace's web site.