The former head of International Space Station for NASA and others are building a hotel in space. They have NASA’s buy-in, and money, to do it.

Houston-based Axiom Space plans to attach a crew module to the International Space Station not later than 2024. Then they’ll add a lab and manufacturing module along with an observatory. Then, when the International Space Station is retired towards the end of the decade, they’ll launch the AxStation – expected to be “the first free-flying internationally available private space station.”

While the International Space Station modules will be destinations themselves, they’re hardly luxurious. Not so the planned AxStation which will serve tourists as well as researchers.

The crew module, which will double as the hotel, features décor by noted interior designer Philippe Starck. The cabins will offer plush padded walls and furnishings, futuristic color-changing LEDs and panoramic views of our home planet that’s some 250 miles away. The exterior modules will be built by European aerospace company Thales Alenia Space, who also constructed approximately half of the modules for the ISS, while the interiors will be manufactured in Houston.

Credit: Axiom Space

NASA has signed off on connecting a crew module to an International Space Station docking port and signed off on a $140 million contract to support it. There’s also a deal in place with SpaceX to transport travelers to the station by the end of 2021.

• Seats are “rumored to cost $55 million and one has reportedly been snapped up by Tom Cruise” who plans to film the first movie shot in space.

• Tourists have a ‘minimum stay requirement’ with begins with 15 weeks of training for the mission.

Credit: Axiom Space

What’s the point of all of this you may wonder? If you’re looking to escape the aliens who are out there, being somewhere else in space won’t help. If you’re looking for a hedge against climate catastrophe, it seems like direct carbon capture is a simpler and more feasible technological solution.

And if you’re just looking to escape the governments and politics of earth, remember that the U.S. already has a Space Force…

Pre-American West merger, US Airways Dividend Miles offered suborbital space flight redemptions for 10 million miles (and a quarter million mile bonus for paid tickets). Virgin Atlantic used to have a Virgin Galactic redemption for space travel – not just for a discount on paid travel, and not just a chance to win a place on a flight, either.