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Hilton Studies Feasibility of Space Hotel
Roman writes "Here's an article about Hilton looking into a space hotel. It says they want it to look like the depiction of a Hilton in 2001 and it mentions the 'romantic possibilities of zero gravity.' I'd love to be the first on my block to steal a robe from that baby!" I've been hearing this dream for most of my life. Sure hope it comes true for some of you under-thirties someday, but I've given up hope of seeing space hotels in *my* lifetime.
But how much Velcro is needed on a Zero-G robe?
I hope we can seriously talk about sex here, without flamebait and the like. But sex in space is sure to be damn awkward. In fact, in contrast to the Hilton's dreamy, idealistic Press release, I'd imagine the reality of the situation would be extremely funny. As most astronauts can tell you, you basically have to re-learn many of your muscle reflexes for operating in zero-g. Good sexual techniques in 1G are difficult enough to learn- and other worst case scenarios in space could get pretty darn nasty. So I think any hope of first time couples going up to enjoy total freedom in love is more of a PR pipe dream for Hilton than anything else. Living in space isn't something to do for a cheap thrill. It's going to require creating an entirely new "culture of physical manner" that takes advantage of the new possibilities and deals with some of the problems.
2014 -- Construction of Hilton Orbiter Hotel begins,
by assembling and converting the giant Shuttle tanks
which had previously been allowed to fall back to
Earth.
http://www.gsreport.com/articles/art000072.html
There was a news story some months ago about he being involved in a plan with Hilton. Can't find any URLs, but apparently he has had ties to them for a while, hence the 2001 reference.
It's funny when you look at some of the logos in 2001. Pan-Am was the mega airline back then, but it went bankrupt. AT & T (the logo on the space phone) is still trotting along. Can't remember other merchandising tie-ins.
Apparently, unlike today's movies which get paid to include product placement, rumor has it that Kubrick had to *pay* the corporations to include their logos and add a respectable touch.
L.
... could be hazardous to your health in zero G. The jizz leaves your penis at 120MPH and will richochet around the ship at high speeds, possibly putting someone's eye out.
Oh yeah, sex in space should be great. If you're in to elastic harnesses and inflatable tubes. There's been a supposed NASA document about sex in zero g floating around the web for a while now - click here. It seems to be a reasonable discussion of the topic, but of course its unverified. True or not, its pretty damn funny.
This is a nonfiction book, written by an astronaut, describing all the minutiae of living on a space station. It deals with showering, shaving, sleeping, etc. There's a detailed explanation, with diagrams, of the space toilet. Nominally a kid's book, it doesn't say anything about sex. But it shows one of the station-beds, which looks something like a combination sleeping-bag and hammock. I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to use in the obvious way.
- Seth Finkelstein
Oh for fuck's sake. Just get over it: you're gonna die of old age, within 50 years or so. Quite frankly the concept of 40,000 immortal Slashdot readers terrifies me anyway.
Tank designers know the answer to this one. You put your shielding in two layers: An outer thin layer and an inner more substantial one.
:v)
Express crud hits the outside layer, vapourises on impact, and your thicker shielding absorbs or dissapates the fragments of the outer shield and the remains of the crud.
The same pronciple is used to defend against anti-tank projectiles, y'see.
Vik
Anybody else got some ideas?
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Getting tired of Slashdot... moving to Usenet comp.misc for a while.
Well, this address by President Hilton discusses the company's looking at space...in 1967. No $/kilo mentioned.
Imagine a zero-G water park...fountain jets, water balls floating around, coriolis fountains, sheets of water sweeping across broadside, people surfing a rotating fountain...and oversize foot fins for flapping at the air...
That being said, what WOULD make for a successful honeymoon suite in a zero-g environment ????
The first addition would be, for lack of better words, an Un-Chastity belt. Picture a belt, coated with fuzzy velcro, to which elastic straps can be attached to as the lovers would see fit.
A second suggestion might be a "love room": a small, spherical room with softly-padded walls, and a plethora of soft handgrips and foot anchors. This, of course, would be for couples and small groups. For larger groups, a long, padded tube might be more suitable, or a large room with loose webbing strung throughout. Brisk, warm airflow through either room is a necessity, if for no other reason than to clear bodily fluids from the atmosphere.
Mind you, this is from L-5/Space Settlement stuff I read in the late 1970's, perhaps there are some more technologically advanced ways to proceed. . .
Well, guess what, romance may be fun, but what would happen to a developing fetus in space? Tadpoles tend to have legs on their heads and arms on their backs and internal organs.. well.. not internal. Scientists have concluded that there is no reason to believe a human fetus will fare any better. I think this may have also been tried with creatures such as mice and other small furries, but I'm not sure.
Sig
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars
I seem to recall that on the Apollo missions, and to a lesser extent the Gemini missions, NASA discovered a potentially serious problem with cosmic rays. Many of the early astronauts were reporting seeing "white streaks" when they closed their eyes along with bright bursts of color and light. After some investigation, NASA discovered that the light was from cosmic rays (?) passing through the eyeballs of the astronauts and momentarily becoming visible. With further investigation, NASA discovered microscopic craters and divots in the helmets and equipment of the early capsules. It seemed that while the cosmic rays were passing through the spacecraft and the astronauts, they were interacting with the matter they came into contact with.
:)
NASA's next concern was obvious. What health risks are involved here? The answer was revealed in experiments conducted during the latter part of the Apollo program and it wasn't very comforting. When the cosmic rays came into contact with normal cellular tissue, they caused immediate decay (ruptured cell walls, DNA damage, etc.) Even more frightening were the neurological effects. When a cosmic ray hit a neuron, the neuron died. While cellular damage can heal itself, a dead neuron is dead forever. A full battery of tests on the astronauts showed slight decreases in memory, reflexes, high motor functions, and even personality changes. The effects weren't serious, but they were there.
For obvious reasons none of this has ever been given much media coverage. By the latter part of the Apollo program, public support for manned space travel was already waning and a public admission that the astronauts were in danger was the last thing NASA wanted to deal with. The problem here is, those astronauts were up for what? Maybe two weeks? What kind of exposure would a staff on a permanent space station see? In order to keep a station like this in orbit for any appreciable amount of time, its orbit would have to be well outside of the Earths sphere of protection (the Mercury astronauts didn't have a problem because they didn't get high enough). What kind of liablility suits would a hotel be facing by exposing employees to this kind of danger? Hell, what kind of suits would they face from customers?!?! Would you take a vacation in space if you knew that brain damage might result?
Disclaimer: I am working solely from memory here, and it's been many years since I read the NASA papers on this. I also haven't seen any recent data on this topic from the shuttle or Mir, just the original Apollo findings. If I improperly stated any points don't flame me, correct me
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
> 1) Safety: astronauts have to go through intensive training on how to handle themselves in
:-)
/. readers would. _There's_ an idea for a /. poll, "How much would you pay for a vacation in space? $100,000? $50,000? $25,000 $10,000? $5,000? $1,000? Not interested."
> zero-G. The average tourist can't afford to take off enough time from work to learn how to
> behave in zero-G.
Astronauts are more like aircraft pilots and flight crews, and of course have to have intensive training. But I don't see that a tourist would need any more training than a tourist flying on a 747. At most, perhaps, would be a medical certificate.
Most of a space hotel would spin and have pseudo-gravity anyway. The non-spinning parts would have to be designed with tourists in mind, but that's just SMOE (small matter of engineering.
> 2) Cost: Only the extremely rich will be able to afford it. And among the ones who can afford
> it, only a few will actually go, and even fewer will enjoy it.
Currently true, NASA does seem to have a vested interest in keeping costs high. DC/X, Roton, and other projects are experiments in significantly reducing the cost of access to space.
Perhaps _you_ wouldn't enjoy space travel, but I bet a significant fraction of
> 3) References to "romantic possibilities" aside, sex in zero-G would just not be all that
> feasible or even desirable -- Newton's three laws of motion come to mind (hint: intertia and
> equal and opposite reactions).
I think a flat declaration like that is very premature, humans are _very_ adaptable creatures. I think any conclusions will have to wait pending, ummm, experimental data.
// TODO: fix sig
Get a freakin' clue. Think about what you are saying here. Currently the way to put vehicles into space is with rocket technology. These rockets, like the Space Shuttles, do not even use petroleum based propelants. These type of rocket engines are Hydrogen/Oxygen engines. The buring of this type of fuel only creates water, and does not deplete any natural resources.
I think that this is a great idea. The only way to really push space travel and exploration is to make it profitable. This means involve the commercial sector. This type of commercial endeavor can only serve to help accelerate the development of technologies which will allow space travel to become common place.
Please get off your environmental soapbox and figure out what you are talking about. If you want to make waves for something talk to your local city council about mass transit, or be an activist and by a ZEV. The space program is not going to dry up the earths natural resources, so get real.
I think I would be in heaven if only I could find a Linux job.
A better idea is something based on the transhab, an inflatable large structure that can be customized beforehand. (By inflatable, think of inflating a baloon with 1ft thick kevlar walls.)
Of course, while NASA might be convinced to launch this thing with the shuttle, it probably won't want to supply/ferry passengers to this station. So, the earliest pre-dependcy will be private commercial passenger launch capability to a reasonably high orbit. Right now, we don't have that capability. Now, eventually we will get passenger launch, but I would't start seriously considering creating a hotel until that is proven.
If anyone can find a link to the story, or if you have a copy of the Wall Street Journal, it's on Page B1, bottom left.
Sorry if I burst any bubbles here!
Ummm...how do you think they get the separated hydrogen fuel in the first place? (Ignoring the solid rocket boosters for the sake of argument.) The free hydrogen has to be separated. This process takes quite a bit of energy, more energy than burning the fuel returns. (See 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.) That energy most likely comes from some fossil source.
It's worth debating whether it's wasteful to use that energy on space travel. Especially on luxury space travel there are reasonable arguments on both sides. I personally am all for it. But I don't dismiss the arguments against out of hand.
The char[]=HAL;while(char x != '\0'){ printf("%c", x+1); } thing was widely speculated upon.
Another interesting coincidence though, is with the "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" sequence and the Pink Floyd song "Echoes" from the Meddle album.
Start the song just as the title comes up, and the changes in the song coincide with the changes in the movie. Then the song and movie ends at exactly the same time.
When there are flyovers of alien terrain there are wind and squealing sounds that seem incredibly appropriate.
Interesting lyric: "I am you and you are me." Later on Dave Bowman looks at himself.
It was a lot of fun to watch 5 times over. It'd be interesting to have a DVD with that as an alternate soundtrack.
Maybe I should get a DVD-RAM drive
Unfortunately you won't be able to idly float on your back without gravity. On the other hand, there are creative ways to move around the surface of the sphere. But doing the butterfly stroke is hard without doing the proper leg kick to keep you in the water.