Will outer space become a normal place for sightseeing one day? There are companies that are anticipating this – and are already investing in the market. There are also ambitious plans for space from science: Nasa is seriously considering sending a probe to another star system to look for extraterrestrial life there. That’s how crazy the plans of Elon Musk and Co.

Orbital Reef: a private space station in space

The company Blue Origin is planning a business park in space that will be called Orbital Reef. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ company wants to create a free-floating space station for research, business and tourism. However, if you think of a park of earthly format when you think of Business Park, you are wrong: The space station should offer space for ten people.

Visitors should live in spacious modules with windows facing the earth and thus be able to permanently experience “the beauty of the planet”. The company advertises thrills, weightlessness and comfort.

If everything goes according to plan, people could stay in Orbital Reef for a longer period of time: Blue Origin wants to set up areas for work and study, but also for relaxation and medical care. Visitors should be able to explore space with single person spacecrafts. Similar to cars, these spacecraft are intended to take people from one place to another in their everyday lives. Experts see the vehicles as a good alternative to space suits because astronauts are better protected in them. Space suits offer little protection against small meteoroids, for example.

Blue Origin plans to make Orbital Reef a reality before 2030. The company has not yet implemented a comparable project. Bezo’s company is best known for its New Shepard Rocket, which the Amazon founder used to launch himself into space.

Moon Valley 2040: a village on the moon

Japanese start-up Ispace dreams of building a settlement on the Moon by 2040. Moon Valley is intended to provide a home for 1000 residents. More than 10,000 people are said to be able to visit the place every year. This should be possible with a rocket shuttle that flies people from the earth to the moon according to a schedule, like the company explains in a video.

But how are the many residents plus visitors supposed to survive in such a hostile environment? Ispace wants to split the water on the moon into oxygen and hydrogen and use it to generate energy. Residents should be able to refuel their moon rovers in gas stations. Ispace anticipates that Moon Valley citizens will gradually acquire all the essential skills needed to survive on the moon. Agriculture should also be possible in this way.

The settlement on the moon is still pure fantasy. Ispace hasn’t put a single human on the moon yet. But the company has already taken the first step: in December 2022, a SpaceX rocket shot the moon lander Hakuto‑R into space. It is scheduled to land on April 25 of this year. Ispace then wants to start further missions to the moon and gradually build infrastructure so that people can eventually live permanently on the moon.

NASA also wants to go to the moon. As part of her Artemis mission, she sent a capsule to Earth’s satellite in winter 2022. The space agency wants to send people to the moon again this decade – including at least one woman. Nasa is considering using the moon as a kind of training ground for future Mars missions.

Elon Musk’s great journey to Mars

Elon Musk wants to send the first humans to Mars. He’s had the plans for a long time: Even before Musk founded the space company SpaceX, he wanted to settle people on the red planet, as he writes on the online platform IEEE. Around a million people should live in a Mars colony by 2050, Musk plans. The flight to Mars is expected to take around six months, SpaceX states on the company’s website. The rocket “Starship” is supposed to bring travelers to their destination. The most powerful rocket ever built is 120 meters high and weighs 100 tons. It will have space for 100 people. Last Monday, SpaceX scheduled a test flight of the rocket, but postponed it until April 20 because a valve froze. This test flight also failed – the Rocket exploded after a few minutes.

It is unclear when SpaceX will send the first humans to Mars. In 2016, Musk announced that the first mission to the planet would start in 2025. In March 2022, he then announced on Twitter that the first mission should start in 2029. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said on US television, that a rocket with humans should fly to Mars within this decade. Shotwell is optimistic: cargo flights are planned first, after which people will consider Mars as a serious housing option. The goals are extremely ambitious. For comparison: NASA, for example, is not planning the first flight to Mars with humans until 2040.

There are numerous hurdles on the way to Mars: For example, the rocket has to be refueled on the more than 55 million kilometer route. In addition, the planet does not offer human-friendly conditions: visitors have to adapt to an average temperature of minus 60 degrees and an atmosphere that consists mainly of carbon dioxide.

A hotel in space

To Ibiza or to space? People could soon ask themselves this question when planning their vacation. The company Above Space wants to open a hotel in space as early as 2027. Around 400 people are to have space in a tire-like module, and the rooms are to be connected by elevator. As early as 2025, the company wants to start a smaller model project that will accommodate around 28 people.

Artificial gravity provides special comfort, Above Space boss Tim Alatorre told CNN. As the module rotates, the entire contents of the station are pushed out. In the middle, of course, there would be no artificial gravity. There, visitors could then experience weightlessness firsthand.

The rooms should be furnished similar to those in earthly luxury hotels. The company wants to base the style on the film “2001: A Space Odyssey” by Stanley Kubrick. The 1968 science fiction classic tells the story of human evolution and the astronaut Bowman.

Nasa wants to leave the solar system – maybe

4.34 light-years away is the distance of the Alpha Centauri star system. To put this in perspective, a light year is approximately 9.46 trillion kilometers. But Nasa is obviously not intimidated by the distance. In 2017 she presented a concept for a mission to the star system. Alpha Centauri is the third brightest star in the night sky and is in the sign of the centaur. Also part of the system is the possibly habitable exoplanet Proxima Centauri b, which may have liquid water – an important basis for life. A probe is to search for signs of extraterrestrial life on the exoplanet. However, the red dwarf, a small star around which Proxima Centauri b orbits, emits bursts of radiation. This would probably not be an ideal place for most living beings. Exoplanets are planets outside of our solar system.

According to NASA’s concept, the mission would start in 2069 – exactly 100 years after the first moon landing. The probe would arrive at Alpha Centauri in 2113. To do this, however, it would have to travel at 10 percent of the speed of light, which no probe has yet managed to do. The Voyager 1 probe left our solar system in 1977, traveling at about one percent the speed of light, 61,000 kilometers per hour. It was the first probe to leave the solar system. In order to achieve the necessary 10 percent speed of light, NASA is considering the use of nuclear reactions. The space agency is also considering collisions between matter and antimatter so that the probe can fly as quickly as possible.

However, speed is not the concept’s only problem. So far there is no funding and accordingly no precise plan for the implementation of the mission.