Space experiences

Today’s real marketing challenge is to keep luxury experiences new and fresh; and this imperative permeates all industries – from luxury goods and travel, to beauty and food. One of the key future trends for high-end travelers is new and emerging destinations … and there’s nothing more far flung than space.

By all reports – it seems that the burgeoning “private” or commercial space industry is thriving. NASA released its plans to obtain transportation services for its astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) as well as optional milestones for the Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2).

Space “talk” has been bubbling since Virgin Galactic’s announcement in 2005 of being the first supplier to offer commercial space tourism. 2012 still the target for when this becomes a reality. The Spaceship Company (TSC), the joint venture of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites, announced a milestone of their own with the opening of its Final Assembly, Integration and Test Hangar (FAITH), at the Mojave Air and Space Port. The hangar, which cost an estimated $8 million, supports the final stages of Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo.

In hospitality news, Russia announced plans this month for a space hotel 217 miles up, which could house seven guests in four cabins and have huge windows for views of Earth. Just getting there will be an adventure in itself – it will take two days aboard a Soyuz rocket. The hotel, or the Commercial Space Station as its properly known, is due to open by 2016 and, according to those behind the project, it will be ‘far more comfortable’ than the International Space Station used by astronauts and cosmonauts.

And in food news, rival chain Pizza Hut set the bar high in 2001 by delivering a pizza to astronauts orbiting Earth in the International Space Station. Not to be outdone, the competition has been taken into the stratosphere with plans for a dome-shaped Domino’s restaurant on the surface of the moon.