NEWS: Themed Mars experience set for Titusville, Florida

[jedimaster1227]

http://www.tampabay.com/news/growth/their-mars-mission-is-set-to-blast-off/1077262

 

Remember the people who said the moon landing was a hoax? A New Port Richey company hopes to create a simulated trip to Mars that everyone will know is fake but will appear as realistic as possible. "This is not Disney World or Universal Studios," said Mark Homnick, 52, one of the managers of NewSpace Center LLC.

 

The company has submitted site plans for a 75-acre lot in Titusville on Florida's Space Coast to build Interspace, a space-themed entertainment and research facility that would include the simulated Martian environment. The men estimated the project will cost about $30-million and said their plans began in 2005.

 

Homnick and his vice president, Joseph Palaia, run the company and its parent, 4Frontiers, out of Homnick's waterfront stilt home. In the garage sits a black Pontiac Firebird with the license tag MARS 001. Homnick, who retired to New Port Richey after a career as a mechanical engineer for Intel Corp., said he first got interested in space travel as a spellbound 12-year-old who watched the moon landing in 1969. Inside the house on Wednesday, the two men showed off their plans on a 42-inch computer monitor. Their presentation included artists' renderings of a high-tech registration center, with information on multiple screens.

 

Tourists could choose to buy one day "explorer" passes for $100 or so that would get them a "trip" to Mars and a peek at the surface environment from an indoor building. Those willing to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,500 could stay for a few days as "settlers" and play roles on Mars such as miner, greenhouse gardener or artist. Settlers would have to wear simulated space suits while on the surface. After registration, guests would be taken to a training center to prepare for a simulated space flight.

 

The number of guests would be limited, like at Orlando's Discovery Cove. Both men use the words "high fidelity" a lot when describing the attraction. "This is not going to be about moving more bodies through turnstiles," Palaia said. "It's much more immersive and interactive." But only to a point. Guests would be allowed to go back to their cars or phone home and check on the kids. Food, such as steaks, not likely to be served on the real Mars, would probably be available on Mars Lite. "We're not putting them in a prison cell," Palaia said with a chuckle.

 

NewSpace Center LLC could break ground as early as September and open in August 2012, the men said. The Titusville City Council recently voted to waive $2,100 of costs associated with the project. The city and county have already approved tax breaks for the project and TICO airport has agreed not to charge a leasing fee for the 75-acre site until construction officially begins, according to Florida Today. Site plans call for multiple hotels, themed restaurants and a university branch campus.

 

Homnick and Palaia hope the park would be a first step toward actually sending manned flights to Mars someday by generating revenue toward that end. Government money for space travel has dried up, but there's no reason the private sector couldn't begin programs, the men said. In fact, Palaia, a 30-year-old graduate of MIT, hopes to someday visit Mars for real. In July, he even spent a month with five other volunteers at Canada's Devon Island, just 800 miles from the North Pole. A meteor fell there 20-million years ago, creating a crater with conditions similar to the Red Planet. He told his wife, an assistant librarian in Largo, that she'd have to let him go on the three-year journey as a condition of their marriage. (A one-way trip to Mars takes six months).

 

Would Palaia's wife be willing to visit Mars in Titusville? "I think she'd go for that," he said.

An artist’s rendering of a tourist attraction planned in Titusville that will be a fully immersive, simulated Mars environment in which guests will be confronted with challenges to overcome in one-day or multi-day experiences.

Joe Palaia poses in his space suit at his home in Holiday. His mission in life is to go to Mars. To prepare himself, and further the cause of a manned Mars mission, he spent July with five volunteers living a mock Mars mission on an island in Canada.

Joe Palaia, left, and Mark Homnick are managers of NewSpace Center LLC, a New Port Richey company, which has submitted plans to build Interspace, a space-themed entertainment and research facility in Titusville on Florida’s Space Coast.

[stricklandCC]

This sounds like it could be really good! Titusville wouldn't be my fist pic though,it is close to KSC, but with only 4 last launches scheduled I'm not sue what will become of it. Add to that a projected cost of only $30 million I'm not sure how well it will be pulled off. Regardless, I really like the sound of it and seems they plan on offering quite an array of ammenities!! Count me in, I'll go!

[alexinla]

I spent Christmas 1989 in Titusville, the memories... oh yeah, there were none

It is really not a great location and this "themed" experience sounds more like something that would have been a big hit in the 1950's

[alexinla]

This article is also very contradicting. They plan to spent $30 million on this project, yet had to ask the city to wave a $2100 permit fee to go forward with this project

This is not going to be about moving more bodies through turnstiles

]

Yet they plan multiple hotels on site(What will these people do there?)

Makes not much sense

[WFChris]

I may be out of line here, but I think this sounds retarded.

 

Chris.

[alexinla]

I might use a different word, but you are right on target with your assumption

[Emiroo]

Dare I say, Get Your Ass to Mars!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6CfR0wtoKk

[alexinla]

If that clip plays in a loop on your hotel tv, I might actually want to go...

[pianojohn]

Two words: Epic Fail.

 

Or maybe a few more words: Marco Polo Park, Circus World, Six Gun Territory, Xanadu: Home of the Future.

 

At least those parks ACTUALLY opened and not just pipe dreams!

 

You see where this is going!

[the ghost]

Yeah, I am not gonna pay one hundred dollars a day for a fake mars experience. I am very confused also, becasue the article says A New Port Richey company hopes to create a simulated trip to Mars that everyone will know is fake but will appear as realistic as possible. "This is not Disney World or Universal Studios," Is that implying that it will not be on par with Disney or Universal? Cause for 3500 dollars for a few days(OMG, crazy) I could stay at all star movies in a room with one other person and pay like 40 dollars a night and have free bus service to all the parks. This wont work.

[alexinla]

For $3500 you can stay a weekend with me in Hollywood, have some fun and you would never know Mars exsisted in the first place(yeah, you can recover at my house aswell)

[dandaman]

Another fine idea from the county of Brevard...

[ECZenith]

3,500 to be a settler on a fake "Mars"? A decade from now that would probably get you a flight there.

 

Have fun rich kids.