Forget the Maldives, the Seychelles or anywhere else - if you are looking for a really exclusive holiday, you should be looking beyond our planet. A Russian company is building a new hotel in space which is scheduled to open in five years' time.
And as RT found out, with an astronomical $60-million price tag, a good view is guaranteed. The first-ever hotel floating in space could be the ultimate escape, and according to its creators this is no space fantasy.“We’ll launch the commercial space station in 2016 and receive our first guests in 2017,” Sergey Kostenko, a CEO at Orbital Technologies, told RT.Designed to host seven guests at most, it is likely to become the most exclusive boutique hotel in the world. Orbital Technologies assure that it will be far more comfortable than the current International Space Station used by cosmonauts and astronauts.Guests will be able to enjoy an individual cabin, a shower cubicle instead of a sponge bath – as those aboard the ISS have to make do with – and toilets with flowing air instead of water. Due to their weightlessness, visitors will only be able to sleep in bags attached to the walls, but there is the choice of sleeping horizontally or vertically. As for the food, it is promised to be delicious.“It will be a super-deluxe trip. Everything has to be top-level,” Sergey Kostenko promises.Just getting there will be an adventure in itself: two days on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft and a chance to rub shoulders with real astronauts too. The hotel will be used as an emergency retreat in case of a crisis on the International Space Station.“I think everyone should grab the chance, if they get it, to go to space,” says Andre Kuipers, a Dutch physician and ESA astronaut. “It will be in the future, but we are making the first steps now.”Evgeny Kovalev, 33, won a contest to become Russia’s first space tourist. He may be lined up for nothing more than a suborbital flight, but he says it is just a start.“All boys dream of this, to feel what only a few have felt,” he says. “There are so many restrictions that can prevent you from going to space, for example, health or money.”A luxury room in one of the world’s leading hotels certainly has its advantages. Having to choose between sleeping vertically or in a comfortable bed, many would certainly go for the padding. But there is one thing even the most luxurious hotel in the world will not be able to beat – the view from the window.