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When you really want to get away from it all, sometimes even a remote island isn’t remote enough.
Thankfully, if a clutch of sky-high thinking entrepreneurs and designers have their way, we will soon really be able to slip out of this world completely.
Skyler Chan, the 22-year-old CEO of Galactic Resource Utilization Space (GRU), recently announced that he’s taking reservations for a hotel he plans to open on the moon within the next 10 years. He’s so confident, he’s asking for refundable deposits ranging from $250,000 to $2 million.
“The moon is just the start; we want to build the first cities on Mars, using the same technology and architecture,” Chan told The Post.
Chan cautioned however, that the getaway spot “will not be for everybody — but every technological revolution is met with a lot of pushback.”
Those who are scared, skeptical, poor or fussy can remain on earth.
“This is a very adventurous thing,” Chan said.
Staying on the moon, at least initially, will be far from a cushy night at the Mandarin Oriental. The hotel will have room for just four people and the structure itself will be inflatable — to cut down the cost of transporting materials from earth.
Rather than room service or a restaurant helmed by a celeb chef, guests will feast on the same utilitarian, freeze-dried grub consumed by astronauts on the International Space Station. (Retired astronaut Clayton “AstroClay” Anderson has said it’s best to avoid the tofu teriyaki.)
Space suits and special buggies will be required for getting around and engaging in the activities Chan envisions for his guests.
“I think people will be moon-walking, exploring in ATVs like you would in the desert, hitting golf balls,” he said.
But, then again, he added, “I would be happy to just sit there and take in the beauty of the Earth.”
Chan imagines guests staying for five nights — if you’ve gone all that way — though that won’t even be a full day on the Moon. One lunar day and night is equal to about 29 on earth.
He thinks Blue Origin or SpaceX will transport people to his hotel.
“We’re betting that the price of launch will continue to fall and that it will fall drastically,” he said.
Eventually, Chan hopes there will be a bigger, better, posher option.
“In our white paper, the artist’s impression [of our deluxe hotel] is inspired by the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco; [it’s] like Greco Futurism,” he said. “We imagine that thousands of years in the future, people will go to the great hotel on the moon and be, like, ‘This is the first man-made building here.’ It’s very monumental.”
The young engineer developed the project as part of the start-up accelerator program Y Combinator, where founders of Airbnb and Reddit cut their teeth. It’s a long shot, but he’s devoted to it.
“I grew up wanting to be an astronaut, but then I realized that it would be more meaningful to develop something that would allow everyone to go into space,” he said. “My life goal is to make humanity interplanetary before I die.”
Chan is not the only one shooting for the stars with big plans for putting people into space.
Axiom Space, the company founded by billionaire Kam Ghaffarian, 67, expects to have a commercial space station in operation where the International Space Station currently orbits, no earlier than 2028. A representative for Ghaffarian told The Post, “It will enable the commercialization of space and the development of a global space economy.”
While the spokesperson admits the timeline for something as ambitious as a permanent lunar structure is tight, she pointed out that technology moved quickly in the last century and moves even more quickly now. “In less than 50 years, we went from the Wright brothers’ first flight, to landing on the moon.”
No doubt, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would agree. He’s planning to put loads of people into orbiting space stations.
“In the next couple of decades, I believe there will be millions of people living in space,” he told a crowd while making a speech at Italian Tech Week 2025. “That’s how fast this is going to accelerate.”
Christian Davenport, who wrote about Bezos and his spacey competitor Elon Musk in “Rocket Dreams,” isn’t exactly shocked by such predictions and proclamations.
“People have been talking about this thing for a long time,” Davenport told The Post. “Now, I think, for the first time in a long time, it has some level of credibility that it can happen within a two-decade time frame.”
In 2023, an Alabama-based company called Above Space announced plans for luxe digs in the solar system. Dubbed Voyager Station, it could supposedly be developed in five years, once financed. The cost was expected to be in the $1 billion dollar range.
Lack of gravity, according to a story in Architectural Digest, could be overcome (in some areas of the station) through rotation. That will allow Voyager Station to have standard hotel amenities such as classy furniture and restaurants where you can eat and drink in style. The project still appears to be in the works.
Other outer space developers are more patient. An India-based architect by the name of Swain C. Shine has given himself a 40-year-horizon for putting an ultra-modern hotel on Mars — though Skyler Chan will surely be angling to get there first.
Either way, Elon Musk will have time to colonize the planet and inflation will bring Shine’s anticipated $1 million per night rate to something that feels halfway reasonable.
“I think we can make it a tourist attraction,” Shine told The Post. “People can explore the craters and dinners will come out of 3-D printers.”
For those who prefer more leisurely travel, much of the hotel will be made of glass, so guests can sit inside while looking at the Martian environment.
While some of the plans may sound far-fetched, Davenport, is optimistic.
“The fact that people are even talking about all this shows increased interest in space,” he said. “The advancements that have been made in the last few years, in terms of commercial space, have been truly remarkable. So, I don’t think it’s that big of a jump to at least begin imagining these new projects.”
English (US)