The inaugural space hotel could welcome guests as early as 2025.

Among all the breathtaking vistas across dream destinations, this one may be the most universally breathtaking: If plans unfold as intended, by 2025, space travelers will be enjoying spectacular views of Earth from their hotel rooms.

Tim Alatorre, chief operating officer and cofounder of Alabama's Orbital Assembly Corp., noted, “The four-person crew from the first privately chartered SpaceX flight last September mentioned they could have spent weeks just watching Earth from their windows, so we’ll ensure there are plenty of windows.” His company is set to construct the first and largest privately operated hotel in orbit.

The space hotel, called Pioneer, will offer up to 28 guests a chance to marvel at the Northern Lights from one of five floating two-story modules positioned between the North and South Pole, just above the latitude of the International Space Station. With the design finalized, the company is now focusing on making the space hotel livable and aims to start assembly and testing on Earth later this year.

“You’ll have unparalleled views of Earth,” says Alatorre. The adaptable modules, the largest measuring 4,300 square feet, which Orbital Assembly intends to modify for additional guests, will provide a compact yet stylish room featuring a view, a bed, and a desk for the most remote type of work.

What will the cost be?

Currently, the estimated trip duration of 4 to 18 hours (depending on the space shuttle route) comes with a price tag of at least $55 million—matching the cost per ticket for that initial privately chartered SpaceX orbital mission. This estimate does not even account for hotel expenses. However, Orbital Assembly Corp. anticipates that as they begin building the hotel, the primary expense—launch costs—will decrease significantly due to technological advancements over the coming years.

Although space travel remains in its early stages, Orbital Assembly Corp. intends to further mitigate expenses by establishing a business park surrounding the hotel, where scientists can experiment with commercial technologies such as rocket engines, life support systems, space habitats, and advanced pharmaceuticals. (The company has opted not to disclose construction and production costs.)

Why has the design of a space hotel taken so long?

For years, Earthlings have fantasized about living in space, inspired by films like Star Wars, The Martian, Apollo 13, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, since the first human ventured into space in 1961, followed by Neil Armstrong's moon landing eight years later and the construction of the International Space Station in 1998, only around 600 people have journeyed beyond our planet.

Indeed, the costs are astronomical, but the technology exists—so what has delayed the design of this space hotel and other similar projects in development? The answer lies in gravity.

The challenge is that astronauts can only enjoy the sensation of floating in microgravity aboard the International Space Station for a limited time. In this near-weightless environment, they experience a free-fall effect as they orbit Earth approximately 16 times daily. However, space sickness, which is the antithesis of motion sickness due to a lack of bodily movement, can impair mobility in space and lead to significant long-term biochemical changes, such as muscle and bone deterioration, and heart issues, even after returning to Earth. Additionally, there are immediate practical challenges to consider.

“Living in microgravity is quite uncomfortable. We often take for granted simple things, like having a glass of water that stays put or being able to set it down without it floating away,” says Alatorre.

In contrast, the Pioneer hotel intends to utilize a new form of artificial gravity that creates a middle ground between microgravity and the familiar gravitational force we experience on Earth, thereby enhancing human longevity.

To discover this ideal balance, Orbital Assembly Corp. is collaborating with former NASA astronaut Mae Jemison and the University of California, Irvine to delve deeper into the effects of artificial gravity on health, comfort, and overall livability.

Orbital Assembly’s innovative rotating artificial gravity ring counters the effects of weightlessness, allowing guests to walk or sip water without it spilling on them. Moreover, based on Neil Armstrong’s iconic moonwalk, we already know that adjusting to a similar gravitational force on the moon (which is about one-sixth of Earth’s) is relatively quick and manageable.

While hotel activities—from dining to stargazing—will occur indoors, the company plans to feature a pressurized microgravity room where tourists can experience floating and spinning like astronauts. One exciting advantage of this artificial gravity hotel is that it will host the first full-service restaurant in space, far surpassing traditional space food pouches and squeeze bottles.

Other companies may also venture into building space hotels.

Certainly, Orbital Assembly Corp. isn't the only entity aiming for the stars. Following NASA's announcement of the 2031 retirement of the aging International Space Station (which will be decommissioned in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean), various companies are eager to fill this gap with commercial space stations. Axiom, which has partnered with SpaceX to host private astronauts (and is collaborating with NASA to enhance the International Space Station), is developing a free-flying microgravity commercial space station. Similar initiatives are underway at Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef, in partnership with Boeing, Amazon, and others, as well as at NanoRacks with Lockheed Martin and Voyager Space. Meanwhile, Northrop Grumman is collaborating with NASA on unmanned cargo missions to the International Space Station and on creating habitats near the moon as part of the Artemis program.

Currently, Orbital Assembly is the only company that has unveiled plans for an artificial gravity space hotel. (In March 2021, the space tourism startup Orion Span announced it had abandoned its plans for the first orbiting hotel and refunded all deposits.) Leading up to 2025, the team will be focused on securing funding, studying the impacts of artificial gravity, and creating shielding technologies to mitigate radiation. By fall, Orbital Assembly aims to begin constructing modules at its new integration, testing, and assembly facility in Huntsville, Alabama—also known as Rocket City. If the Pioneer project progresses as planned, Orbital Assembly anticipates launching a second space hotel, Voyager Station, by 2027, featuring larger accommodations for 400 guests, a lounge bar, and even a basketball court—because the sky is hardly the limit.