A California-based startup wants an ambitious traveler to take mankind’s next giant leap… into “the first hotel on the moon.” Galactic Resource Utilization Space, aka GRU Space, is officially taking reservations for the first-ever lunar resort.
The ambitious project, led by 21-year-old UC Berkeley graduate Skyler Chan, aims to transform Earth’s sole satellite into a destination for wealthy adventurers who want—and will pay for—a truly out-of-this-world experience.
GRU Space is currently accepting applications with a $1,000 non-refundable fee, while those selected for the first “space-cations” must provide deposits ranging from $250,000 to $1 million. The final moon-stay rates haven’t been set, but the company’s white paper suggests the total cost will likely exceed $10 million per person.
“We live during an inflection point where we can actually become interplanetary before we die,” Chan said in a statement. “If we succeed, we will enable billions of human lives to be born on the moon and Mars.”
The company’s action plan is based around “In-Situ Resource Utilization” (ISRU), a process that turns lunar regolith—the moon’s dusty top layer—into durable building materials over a three-phase development. In 2029, a 22-pound test payload will land on the moon to demonstrate the ability fabricate “moon bricks” using proprietary geopolymers. By 2031, a second mission will deploy a larger inflatable habitat into a “lunar pit”—a deep hole or cave—to provide natural shielding from radiation and extreme temperature swings. In 2032, the first official hotel, an Earth-manufactured inflatable module with accommodations for four, is tentatively scheduled to open its doors.
While the first iteration will be a pressurized inflatable module, the company’s long-term construction plan is far more opulent. Future versions of the hotel are envisioned as rigid structures modeled after the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Naturally, the project faces astronomical hurdles. The moon hotel’s depends on heavy-lift vehicles like SpaceX’s Starship, which have yet to perform regular crewed lunar landings. And there are virtually no international laws regarding property rights and permanent structures on the moon.
“It is a big bet,” Chan acknowledged. “We’re not going to sugarcoat it. But if we’re successful, this is literally going to be the most impactful thing that has happened in human history.” As GRU Space’s white paper puts it, “The next trillion-dollar company isn’t building an AI agent—it’s building the first cities on the Moon and Mars, enabling billions of human lives to be born.”
