It is hard to look upon this with optimistic eyes... we should try, Its a great idea. Thinking it through is easy and costs nothing at all. Unfortunately that is a folly of fools., and me. Just imagine climbing out of earths grip and entering a space station 'Hotel'... Yes, I want this.
What is the annual budget for the NASA operations. That is not a question. The answer is not required. I am just pointing at some of the issues this line of thinking is up against. Its billions of hard to justify good old money. NASA is a very proud explorer. To think that a privately funded space venture could hope to achieve all that would be required is a nonsense. Mr Bronson and the Virgin co., is looking at space opportunities and I have no doubt will feature in the future of space exploration hotels and all. We have all the knowledge or the tools to obtain it at hand today. Its like going back to the moon. We could do it as soon as we want. As is always the trumpet I play... The cost. the costs... Its going to be a long time until this sort of costing can be found justifiable. A would wish it possible. Its not.

.

NASA is expensive for reasons beyond mere economics. Just because they have million-dollar toilet seats doen't mean a private organization has to go the same route.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Yes, comparing them to NASA is unfair. But you simply look at say, Bigelow or SpaceX, and it's clear why Space Hotel has no basis in reality.

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You can't really tell the difference between drunken rambling and sober blogging.

But if Rotan are involved.. It will happen.

How hard can it be.. ?

Build modules and launch them into LEO. Get up there and assemble it..

Design and build a safe transport for public use to and fro...

Yaa... easy. All of which we could do by the end of 2012.

All we need is VERY DEEP POCKETS....

We could spend weeks talking of methods available to get people into Low Earth Orbit. Easy...
Making it a viable inexpensive alternate to the south of France or the Hawaiian Islands... Difficult.

hmm... you know. those modules need not be so heavy. a 10 tonne inflatable could be launched on a single Falcon 9, and would be usable as a hotel right off the bat.
the clinch on time is to get a man rated capsule in time.

bte. the sundancer is currently slated for launch in 2011. no date set yet.

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Signature? Why?

Yes and no. NASA's paid for a lot of R&D work to figure things out, so certain costs can be saved, but other things simply have to be expensive because of what all they entail. Its like when people got bent out of shape because the Air Force was buying $5,000 coffee makers for their airplanes. People saw the price tag and assumed that this was simply wasteful government spending. The reality is that even commercial airliners have $5,000 coffee makers because of stringent FAA regulations. (After all, you don't want hot coffee flying around the inside of a plane when it encounters minor turbulence.)

I can't really see a private spaceflight company ditching the fancy dancy toilets that the shuttle uses to go back to the Apollo-era set up.

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We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

It would be more practical if a private venture took posession of the
orphaned fleet of space shuttles, a proven design which actually brings a large number of people ( provided you enclose the cargo bay and each
passenger is wearing a space suit... or build a pressure vessel capable of doing the job within that enclosure) . And even enjoying that economic luxury .... several shuttles to bring up the modules for assembly, and one built
to transport, it still gobbles up money like crazy. Either way you do it, those passengers are risking a high temperature re-entry at severe velocity each time they return. I wonder if progressive has a policy for this?

Dan

certainly rotan (rattan) wood construction is lightweight and would be fancy in a space hotel, but I think that you meant Rutan.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Yes, rather than Roatan, the island known for its scuba diving...

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

Or this fella

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We want our children to go to the planets. Burt Rutan 6/21/04 K.I.L.L. S.M.U.R.F.S.
Tuckers! Automotive Oddities! Building my hot rod with the help of the intarwebs Those who would delay scientific progress for a little temporary prosperity shall have neither. MachineCast Save the planet, by leaving it! "To be second in space is to be second in everything," LBJ.

Like you say the ISS is pratically there already...it's being done underwater already.

That's what Peter Griffin did. He bought a Space Shuttle, took it home, launched it and then spent three days furiously <saving the mods the trouble> until the cabin was like a snow globe.

Rodan. Genius, Tuckerfan.

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek