Trips to the final frontier are set to become increasingly accessible.
Recognising this, one company is set to launch holiday campuses around the world where guests receive training for their first off-world holiday.
The firm is called Orbite and to prepare guests for commercial space travel it plans to offer a unique range of programmes from submarine expeditions to space cooking lessons.
Orbite is set to have five campuses: Bordeaux (France), Neom (Saudi Arabia), Antarctica, Curacao (Caribbean) and Florida (USA), each offering a different space-themed training experience. All the camps will fully open later this year.
An eight-day trip to Antarctica’s South Pole, starting from $215,000/£173,000 per person, will see guests take part in a glacier hike and outdoor explorations as Antarctica’s ‘remote and extreme environment makes it a unique location for simulating life in space’.
On this trip, guests will stay in a ‘sky pod’ at the White Desert Echo Camp. ‘Sky pods’ are designed to ‘look like they’ve been beamed down from Mars’ and the camp claims to offer an experience that’s close to ‘feeling like you’re off the planet without leaving Earth’.
Meanwhile, a four-night Sea-Space Odyssey in Curacao, costing from $29,500/£23,774, will take guests below the water on three submarine dives to gain insight into ‘the demands of off-world missions’. Guests will stay at the Baoase Hotel, a luxury holiday resort.
In Paris, the ‘Living In Space’ experience, costing from £19,500/£15,716, will see guests dine at the space-themed restaurant Stellar and tour a bio-farm lab to learn how to grow food in space. The trip will also include a space food lecture and cooking class at the culinary school Ecole Ducasse.
Orbite is set to launch holiday campuses around the world where guests receive training for their first trip to space. The picture above shows Astronaut Orientation participants experiencing weightlessness during a zero-gravity flight guided by Chief Astronaut Trainer Brienna Rommes, who led them through spaceflight training exercises during an event in 2021
On Orbite’s Antarctica trip, guests will stay in a ‘sky pod’ at the White Desert Echo Camp. ‘Sky pods’ (pictured above) are designed to ‘look like they’ve been beamed down from Mars’
The company’s ‘Living in Space’ course in Paris will teach guests about space food
Guests booked on to the Astronaut Orientation course (starting from $29,500/£23,768) at Orbite’s upcoming Florida campus, will take part in VR spacecraft experiences and try out a ‘microgravity’ aircraft to experience the feeling of weightlessness.
On the final day of the four-night experience, guests will take a seat inside a spacecraft cabin and ‘get to feel actual acceleration forces’.
Astronaut Orientation is led by Orbite’s Chief Astronaut Instructor, Brienna Rommes, who has trained more than 750 commercial astronauts for space voyages.
While individuals need to be in ‘good health’ to take part in the programmes, the trips are still designed to feel like a ‘holiday’.
Orbite explains to MailOnline: ‘Space Experiences are luxury travel holidays that integrate elements of space education and experiential learning to provide a fun and engaging introduction to the future of space travel.’ Pictured above is accommodation in Antarctica
Guests will stay at the Baoase Hotel (pictured above), a luxury holiday resort, while in Curacao
Orbite explains to MailOnline: ‘Space Experiences are luxury travel holidays that integrate elements of space education and experiential learning to provide a fun and engaging introduction to the future of space travel.
‘At the same time, our more rigorous Astronaut Training programmes are set in a five-star resort so that every customer feels like they are on “holiday”.’
So, does Orbite believe space tourism has the potential to go mainstream?
Its founders – Jason Andrews and Nicholas Gaume – certainly think so.
They tell MailOnline: ‘We are in the very early days of the industry. As commercial space infrastructure further develops, like SpaceX’s Starship, the price and frequency of human space travel will improve, allowing greater numbers of people to experience space at lower overall price points.’
