A guidebook to space travel went on sale Wednesday, offering a glimpse of what a voyage to the final frontier will be like and noting that a night in a space hotel will likely cost about 110 million yen.
"Space Travel Guidebook," published by Random House Kodansha Co. and authored by freelance writer Kimiyo Hayashi, says a nine-day tour including five nights at the International Space Station costs about 2.2 billion yen per person.
The book, issued a day after the much-anticipated launch of the space shuttle Discovery, features photographs of space vehicles and past trips into space. It also introduces tours being offered to the ISS, travel plans for experiencing zero-gravity conditions in airplanes, and lists other possibilities for future travel to the moon and Mars.
According to the book, Nevada-based Bigelow Aerospace Inc. is planning to open a space hotel on Jan. 10, 2010, and charge $1 million a night.
Virginia-based Space Adventures Ltd. sent two civilians on a nine-day trip to the ISS for about $20 million a person, the book says.
The book also features other space trivia, including that Japanese curry is popular with astronauts and that one can make calls to anywhere in the world from the ISS.
The book also explains how to eat and use the toilet in zero gravity.
