Galactic Suite Design is an aerospace design company based in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

, Spain. The company develops concepts and designs for aerospace projects. The company became well known for its announcement of the Galactic Suite Space Resort, a cancelled plan to create an orbital space station. Galactic Suite Design was the lead company in the consortium of companies fielding the

Barcelona Moon Team Barcelona Moon Team is a Spanish team led by Galactic Suite Design, which is participating in the Google Lunar X Prize. History Galactic Suite Design (GSD) is the lead company in a consortium of companies fielding the Barcelona Moon Team in the G ...

, a competitor for the Google Lunar X Prize, with a Moon launch scheduled for 2014.

History

Galactic Suite Space Resort

The Galactic Suite Space Resort is a cancelled 2007 concept proposal for an orbital

space station A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time, and is therefore a type of space habitat. It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. An orbital station or an orbital space station i ...

. The Galactic Suite Space Resort space station began as a hobby for Xavier Claramunt, architect and director of Galactic Suite Design. The station reportedly entered development after an unnamed space enthusiast invested to build it. An unnamed

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

company with the goal of colonising Mars assisted in some of the early stages of the project, and discussions with additional private investors from

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, the United States and the United Arab Emirates have taken place. Early design concepts called for a central hub with a dozen modules radiating outwards, providing an indefinite number of bedrooms for several customers at a time. Claramunt said that while it would be a challenge to design a bathroom that works in microgravity, showers might be taken in a spa room with bubbles of floating water. The issue of moving around in space would be solved by having guests wear suits of Velcro for sticking to the module walls, similar to its use in the film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey''. The station was to conceivably orbit the Earth once every 90 minutes, providing 16 day-and-night cycles every 24 hours. The company stated in 2010 that a three-day stay was projected to cost per customer. Company studies found that 40,000 people worldwide were capable of affording such a stay. The project was supposed to have included an "astronaut training center" and spaceport. In 2008, Claramunt stated that construction of the station would begin in October of that year, and that European company EADS Astrium would be the contractor in charge of building the modules and other equipment. However, Astrium denied any involvement in the project. In November 2010, the company announced that a first phase would bring into orbit a single modified ATV module for a cost of , while a second phase would increase the total number of modules up to four in a cross configuration. Some experts, including Thomas Bouvet (

International Astronautical Federation The International Astronautical Federation (IAF) is an international space advocacy organization based in Paris, and founded in 1951 as a non-governmental organization to establish a dialogue between scientists around the world and to lay t ...

), Mark Homnick ( 4Frontiers) and Juan de Dalmau ( Centro Tecnológico para la Industria Aeronáutica y del Espacio) expressed skepticism about the project, raising concerns that Galactic Suite would be unable to meet the 2012 goal because no hardware had been built and tested, and that no rocket system was available to transport guests to the station. The investment was also predicted to have fallen short of the project's needs; for example, the suborbital shuttle proposed by EADS Astrium would cost , and the conversion of ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle into a human-rated transport system would cost around . By 2021, the project had been cancelled permanently.

Barcelona Moon Team

Galactic Suite Design was the lead company in a consortium of companies fielding the Barcelona Moon Team in the Google Lunar X Prize competition. GSD does so through a filial company, Galactic Suite Moon Race. BMT is the official candidate to the GLXP. The team was a multidisciplinary joint venture. The team also includes the Centre of Aerospace Technology in Barcelona ( CTAE), the

Polytechnic University of Catalonia The Technical University of Catalonia ( ca, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, , es, link=no, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña; UPC), currently referred to as BarcelonaTech, is the largest engineering university in Catalonia, Spai ...

(UPC) or the international engineering advisory firm

Altran ALTRAN (ALgebraic TRANslator) is a programming language for the formal manipulation of rational functions of several variables with integer coefficients. It was developed at Bell Labs in 1960s. ALTRAN is a FORTRAN version of ALPAK rational algebra ...

. BMT wants to promote a widening involvement of private initiative in the development of space technology and industry, also including sectors such as exploration and tourism. The Barcelona Moon Team GXLP mission was scheduled to launch aboard a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

Long March 2C in June 2015. However, the team later withdrew their entry from the competition.

References

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El País ''El País'' (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. ''El País'' is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA. It is the second most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . ''El Pa ...

, author=Staff , date=29 June 2009 , accessdate=29 June 2009, language=es {{cite news , url=http://www.nbcnews.com/id/20216344 , title=Spanish venture aims to build space hotel , work=NBC News , author=Staff , date=10 August 2007 , accessdate=4 March 2009 {{cite magazine , url=https://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/08/china-x-prize-robot/ , title=China to Launch Spanish Team's Lunar X PRIZE Robot , magazine= Wired , first=Jason , last=Paur , date=9 August 2012 , accessdate= 17 August 2012 {{cite news , url=http://www.gizmag.com/barcelona-moon-team-lunar-x-prize/14989/ , title=Barcelona Moon team enters Lunar X PRIZE , work=Gizmag.com , first=Ben , last=Coxworth , date=4 May 2010 , accessdate=17 July 2010 {{cite news , url=http://www.space.com/news/070811_space_hotel.html , title=Space Hotel Slated to Open in 2012 , work=Space.com , first=Andrea , last=Thompson , date=11 August 2007 , accessdate=14 August 2007 {{cite news , url=http://www.aftenposten.no/reise/article1934576.ece , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090319151851/http://www.aftenposten.no/reise/article1934576.ece , url-status=dead , archive-date=19 March 2009 , title=Hotell i særklasse , work= Aftenposten , first=Simmi , last=Kaur , date=14 August 2007 , access-date=14 August 2007 , language=no {{cite news , url=https://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL1089156420070810?sp=true , title=Fly me to the moon: space hotel sees 2012 opening , work=Reuters , first=Pascale , last=Harter , date=10 August 2007 , accessdate=12 August 2007 {{cite web , url=http://www.galacticsuitedesign.com/index.php?apartat=4&idiom=2&info=true&inici=82 , title=GS Spaceresort , work=Galactic Suite Design , accessdate=11 November 2010 {{cite web , url=http://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/galactic-suite/ , title=Galactic Suite Space Hotel , work=Designbuild-network.com , first=Christopher , last=Kanal , accessdate=26 October 2008 {{cite news , url=http://www.publico.es/152522 , title=2012, una quimera en el espacio , work= Público , first=Daniel , last=Mediavilla , date=19 September 2008 , accessdate=20 September 2008, language=es {{cite news , url=http://www.lavanguardia.es/economia/noticias/20101116/54072060699/galactic-suite-usara-tecnologia-de-eads-astrium-en-los-modulos-del-hotel-espacial.html, title=Galactic Suite usará tecnología de EADS-Astrium en los módulos del hotel espacial , work= La Vanguardia , date=16 November 2010 , accessdate=7 January 2011, language=es {{cite news , url=http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2010/11/16/ciencia/1289905575.html , title=Tecnología europea para el futuro hotel espacial , work= El Mundo , date=16 November 2010 , accessdate=7 January 2011, language=es {{cite news , url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7419793.stm , title=Berlin unveils 'crewed spaceship' , work= BBC News , first=Jonathan , last=Amos , date=28 May 2008 , accessdate=11 November 2010 {{cite web , url=http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/teams/barcelona-moon-team , title=Barcelona Moon Team , work=Google Lunar X Prize , access-date=11 November 2010 , url-status=dead , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927005457/http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/teams/barcelona-moon-team , archive-date=27 September 2011 {{cite web , url=http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/teams/barcelona-moon-team/blog/altran-joins-the-barcelona-moon-team , title=Altran joins the Barcelona Moon Team , work=Google Lunar X Prize , date=21 October 2010 , accessdate=11 November 2010 {{cite news , url=https://news.yahoo.com/chinese-firm-send-spanish-robot-moon-060032408.html , title=Chinese firm to send Spanish robot to moon , work= Yahoo! News , author=Indo Asian News Service , date=17 August 2012 , accessdate=17 August 2012

External links

Galactic Suite Design official site

Galactic Suite Space Resort official site

Google Lunar X-Prize official site
Proposed space stations Space tourism Companies based in Barcelona Private spaceflight companies Spanish companies established in 2007