Galactic Suite “on schedule”?

The little-known Spanish company Galactic Suite, which has previously made bold pronouncements about developing a “space hotel” as soon as 2012, tells Reuters they’re on schedule to accept their first guests in 2012. For the bargain rate of $4.5 million, guests will be able to spend three nights in their “pod” in low Earth orbit (if that price includes transportation there and back, it would be a great bargain compared to the estimated $35 million for a week or so on the ISS.) How they’ll get there isn’t clear, other than that they’ll use “Russian rockets”. Given the demands on Soyuz for ISS missions, that would seem to be ruled out; the only potential alternative would be to partner with Excalibur Almaz (whose web site is currently down, hence the Wikipedia link), which is planning crewed flights starting in around 2013.

However, there’s precious little evidence that the company is actually on track in any realistic way for a 2012 launch. The company has a flashy web site (figuratively and literally), but it’s tough to find updated information: the news section is largely in Spanish, and appears to focus as much as plans to compete for the Google Lunar X Prize as for its hotel. (They have a blog as well, but, curiously, it requires a login.) When I’ve tried contacting them in the past I’ve never gotten a response. So if they really are three years from flying space tourists to their orbital station, they need to do a better job of demonstrating that they have the funding, technology, and various other arrangements needed for that to happen.

4 comments to Galactic Suite “on schedule”?

  • Dave Salt

    I had an e-mail exchange with this organisation about a year ago and was a bit surprised to find their reply was caught by my spam filter. This was the only instance I’ve ever had of a genuine e-mail being trapped in this way, so it naturally raised my suspicions about them.

    Unfortunately, nothing I’ve seen or read since has allayed my concerns. The only way I could see them fielding an operational facility by 2012 is if they buy one from the Russians, like Excalibur Almaz. However, I see no real evidence of this and so remain highly skeptical of this venture.

  • Jose Mariano Lopez Urdiales

    I know Xavier Claramunt personally, all this Galactic Suite talk has nothing to do with Space and very much to do with the current housing and construction crisis in Spain. Xavier and his associates need to raise their profile as architects and do so by feeding the media baseless stories. Not one of their claims stands scrutiny. They claim to be a google xprize team, but they do not show up at the team page. It is all a mixture of plagiarizing and sheer incomptenence. They give a bad name to real space entrepreneurs.
    Cheers from Barcelona

  • masonstorm

    I think this is one of the few times imo when privatization is a really good idea. Whether we think it’s necessary or not, we need to continue to develop new forms of space travel and technology to facilitate it. What the ppl whose only argument is “we have too many problems down here to be worrying about this,” they fail to understand the two most important implications of aeronautical research. The first is for national defense… it’s bad enough that nasa has to rely on Russia to ferry them to the ISS. If we keep going at this rate, our disadvantage will only grow as they continue to develop new technologies in their space program while we pump the brakes on ours. Is air and space superiority something you really want the Russians to have? It doesn’t seem like a good idea for any one country to have, let alone one whom we have a sketchy history with. The second is that with aeronautical research comes a flood of new technologies, most of which are very applicable to us down on earth. For example, if it wasn’t for nasa, we wouldn’t have the chips that we use for non-invasive biopsies, solar energy, and a whole litany of other things (http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html#Top has a good number of inventions that most of us don’t know came from our space program). And if you’re one of those ppl that are so skeptical (or cynical imo) that you still don’t think that any of the things on this list warrant a larger investment in a privatized space industry, just remember that while you sleep at night, you most likely have nasa to thank for that, too. If you use any type of home security system, chances are they use infrared and laser technology that came out of nasa’s research (just look at the adt home security infrared camera page. They even admit that the technology came from nasa!)

  • […] The team, in its blog posts, hasn’t disclosed many details about the development of its rover, beyond it being a four-wheel design with at least a minimal payload to comply with the GLXP requirements to send video and image “Mooncasts” after landing. Barcelona Moon Team is affiliated with Galactic Suite, a company that has announced plans to develop commercial space stations for space tourism but has appeared to make little concrete progress in recent years (in 2009, for example, the company claimed to be on schedule to start flying customers in 2012.) […]

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