Vacation in space?
As travel between the heavens draws nearer for those who can afford it, Orbital Assembly Corp. plans to already has a hotel business based in Fontana.
Orbital is working on autonomous robots that could build luxury hotels in space and eventually create a floating interstellar cruise ship.
Orbital Assembly CEO Rhonda Stevenson said that while the idea may seem far-fetched, proving that the technology works on the ground is the first step in convincing people to use it in space.
The company wants to “create large spatial structures that simulate gravity” and serve multiple uses – residences, hotels, business centers and bars, she said in an email.
Space tourism is already booming. SpaceX recently announced it would sell four tickets to launch private individuals into space than already in 2021 – and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, said he would go into orbit himself as soon as possible this July.
Orbital hopes that by 2027 it can build a functional space hotel on a ship that can spin fast enough to maintain gravity inside.
Photo courtesy of Orbital Assembly Corp.
The structure was originally designed as a Von Braun space station, according to Nazi rocket scientists Dr. Wernher von Braun. A company spokesman said the name was changed to Voyager Station for “obvious reasons.”
“I hate to compare ourselves to Elon Musk because I see him as a person who can only appear once in a generation,” said Tim Alatorre, chief operating officer and chief financial officer. “But he saw a problem that nobody solved and that is what Orbital Assembly is doing. I think we’re seeing a problem that nobody solves. We don’t have low-gravity stations in orbit, we don’t have any. I don’t have the ability to build large structures economically and easily in orbit. ”
“There’s no technical reason for this. It’s just a matter of will and having all the business and commercial components in place to make it happen,” added Alatorre.
Alatorre added that building a robot in space could be a lot safer than asking people to take space walks.
“To get humanity into space, we need to be able to build things more economically,” Alatorre said. “The International Space Station was built primarily by astronauts in spacesuits who manually went into the vacuum of space, and that’s just not inexpensive. But it’s also a danger that we think about, it’s incredibly dangerous and you have to train a lot. “
Orbital Assembly isn’t the first company to come up with the idea of a hotel beyond the stars. Almost as soon as manned spaceflight began in 1961, people spread the idea of living, working, and chilling in space. Only recently, when SpaceX, Blue Origin, and other private space companies made advances toward private space travel, have these projects become more focused.
The Orbital Assembly building system is called DSTAR robot (short for Demonstrator Structural Truss Assembly Robot) and is the company’s first attempt to demonstrate the work of automatic construction machines.
Orbital will be holding a technology demonstration on June 19, during which a framework the size of a soccer field will be assembled in its warehouse in Fontana. After the event, the company will post videos of the robots in action.
Photo courtesy of Orbital Assembly Corp.
Alatorre also said he hopes the demo technology is recyclable or something that Orbital Assembly can resell.
“We had [it] stored in parts all over Southern California and we didn’t have space big enough to assemble, “Alatorre said.” Since we announced this, we actually have a number of different potential customers interested in using this Half-timbered construction technology also for other purposes; While this is a demonstrator, we hope we can repurpose it and use it for a few other customers. ”
After the technology is operational, the next step will be to put the DSTAR into near-Earth orbit by 2023.
There are a myriad of challenges Orbital Assembly could – and anticipate – face in building a place to stay in the stars. First there is the money: Stevenson said the company would need to raise $ 200 million to fund its mission in 2023.
So far, Orbital Assembly has raised just $ 1 million from investors through a Net Capital-led equity crowdfunding drive since its launch in 2019.
Funding problems have plagued other sky-high startups: a Houston, Texas-based company called Orion span was excited to start a space hotel project until this year, but closed shop before it started. The company was forced to refund the $ 80,000 fee it charged customers to pre-order a ride to their space hotel.
Alatorre said the first two parts of the Voyager station could be “a maximum of about $ 2 billion.” He added that “our current estimates for the total Voyager station are less than $ 8.6 billion” and added, “keep in mind that the station is significantly larger than most of the others.”
Related articles on the web
