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.

Comments

Space Tourism Links

[SEWilco]

Here are some more space tourism links for your 2001 holiday planning:

• Space Tourism Initiative
• SpaceFuture's Tourism page
• Space Markets: Tourism
• The Prospects for Space Tourism
• Zegrahm Space Voyages (wait until 2002)
• Artemis Project: Recreation (mostly lunar)

Arthur C. Clarke's prediction

[Lucius Lucanius]

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.

Nasa's sex in space study

[irongull]

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.

Space Hotel Recreational Activities?

[wjwlsn]

So what would you do in a space hotel? I assume that you'd probably want to spin the thing to provide at least some "gravity" for tourists. Like many other posters here, I see the space station from 2001 in my head when I think of a space hotel. That type of design would afford opportunities for providing near-normal gravity for eating, sleeping, etc. on the outer regions of the station. Inner regions would have lower equivalent g's, with the center of the station being at essentially zero-g. Okay, assume you have a variety of gravitational environments to play with. Here's some ideas:

• zero-g handball
• low-g basketball
• low-g ballet/acrobatic exhibitions
• Would it be possible to fly in low-g by strapping fake wings to your arms and just flapping?
• multi-g roller-coaster!

Anybody else got some ideas?

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More problems than G...

[BrianH]

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 :)