Space vacation: orbiting hotel ready for guests by 2016

Commercial space station.

This post was originally published on Mashable.com
The age of space tourism might be closer than you think. In fact, if you have an extra $US1 million ($964,041) lying around, five years from now you could be one of the first off-world adventurers to stay for five days in this orbiting hotel built by Russian company Orbital Technologies.
You’ll get there via a Russian Soyuz rocket, taking you about a day to reach the Commercial Space Station 217 miles above the earth. Once you catch up to the orbiting abode, you’ll settle in with your comrades — up to six other space tourists (or researchers) — for an unparalleled adventure, residing in four cabins aboard the space station.

The space station from another angle.

While you’re traveling at 17,500 miles (28,163 kilometres) per hour in low earth orbit, you’ll be pampered with all the spacely amenities you can imagine, such as plenty of gourmet foods, a specially designed sealed shower and your choice of a vertical or horizontal bed (does it really matter in the microgravity of space?).
Perhaps the best feature of the Commercial Space Station will be its large portholes, which will probably occupy most of your time as you gaze out into the cosmos and down at the earth below.
[via International Business Times and DVICE]

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/space-vacation-orbiting-hotel-ready-for-guests-by-2016-20110819-1j0w6.html#ixzz1VS0sAW9H