There you are in space. You just blasted off from Boca Chica and sit floating in low earth orbit. For every kg of your body’s flesh, there is n kgs of spacecraft around you. The vehicle itself. Maybe it’s automated but it has a skin to protect against radiation, micrometeorites, and vacuum. Maybe the consumables are recycled, but the structure of the spacecraft—the motors for life support, the parachutes for the escape system, the propellant for the reentry burn—all count as “payload” to orbit. Payload that will be required for you to make it alive to the space hotel and return safely later. 5:1 sounds like an underestimate, actually. On top of that, the food and booze are obviously required for your stay on the hotel. Maybe the air and water can be recycled, but growing food to appeal to the palate of someone in this price-range isn’t possible without a vast amount more scale.
There you are in space. You just blasted off from Boca Chica and sit floating in low earth orbit. For every kg of your body’s flesh, there is n kgs of spacecraft around you. The vehicle itself. Maybe it’s automated but it has a skin to protect against radiation, micrometeorites, and vacuum. Maybe the consumables are recycled, but the structure of the spacecraft—the motors for life support, the parachutes for the escape system, the propellant for the reentry burn—all count as “payload” to orbit. Payload that will be required for you to make it alive to the space hotel and return safely later. 5:1 sounds like an underestimate, actually. On top of that, the food and booze are obviously required for your stay on the hotel. Maybe the air and water can be recycled, but growing food to appeal to the palate of someone in this price-range isn’t possible without a vast amount more scale.