Hilton To Design Astronaut’s Quarters For Private Space Station
Earlier this year, NASA revealed its plans to decommission the International Space Station (ISS), crashing it into the Pacific Ocean in under a decade’s time to make way for private ventures in orbit.
Blue Origin, helmed by billionaire Jeff Bezos, has already unmasked its plans for its commercial space station, which will function as a floating all-in-one business center in zero gravity.
Now, Voyager and Lockheed Martin, which are working on another private space enterprise, have announced that hotel giant Hilton will be tasked with designing the suites and sleeping quarters for the astronauts onboard.
According to CNBC, the facility—dubbed Starlab—will feature hospitality suites and sleeping quarters, and Hilton will work together with Voyager to “examine opportunities for the marketing of the space station,” which could potentially point to a future space hotel in the making.
Dylan Taylor, Chairman of Voyager, told the publication he felt the hotel chain brought a “unique perspective” to the project considering they aren’t “space people,” looking at it with a “fresh set of eyes” as a first-of-its-kind partnership between the space and hospitality sectors.
The first version of the space station is slated to comprise of three modules attached together, with the company planning on expanding it to “multiple Starlabs” in the future, each purpose-built to serve different markets.
Starlab is scheduled to be launched into low Earth orbit as soon as 2027, and will be one of four private space stations under NASA contracts, including Bezos’ Blue Origin, Axiom Space, and Northrop Grumman.
