Orbital Technologies, a Moscow-based firm have proposed the idea of a Commercial Space Station to serve as a hub for travellers and as overspill accommodation for the International Space Station.

The plan is to create a four-room guest house that will be in orbit by 2016. Guests would be ferried from Earth to the hotel in a shuttle that is usually used to transport cosmonauts to the International Space station (ISS). It will follow the same orbit as the ISS and promises to provide greater comforts to space tourists in the place of the often cramped conditions within the ISS. Orbital Technologies have also revealed that guests will also be able to look at the Earth through large portholes.

The hotel will be aimed at wealthy individuals and companies that want to do some research about Space, and with the launch of Virgin Galactic to transport people into Space, it will support the influx of space tourists.  The first module would have 4 cabins, designed to accommodate up to 7 passengers who would be packed into a space of 20 cubic metres. It has been stated that food will be suited to individual preferences, with organisers thinking of employing celebrity chefs to cook meals before they are sent into Space.

It is not yet clear how it will be built, but Energia, Russia’s spacecraft manufacturer has been named as one of the projects general contractors. It is also said that Russian and American investors are willing to inject hundreds of millions of dollars into the project.

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