People, Profiles

A Berkeley Haas grad's quest to make space tourism a reality

By Public Affairs

sketch of Aurora Space Station
A proposed prototype of the Aurora Space Station, which will host four guests and two crew traveling in low orbit. (PRNewsfoto/Orion Span)
sketch of Aurora Space Station

A proposed prototype of the Aurora Space Station, which will host four guests and two crew traveling in low orbit. (PRNewsfoto/Orion Span)

For a cool $12.5 million, people can sign up for a Berkeley Haas MBA’s dream project: a 12-day trip to a space station 200 miles above the earth’s surface.

And so far, 26 people have plunked down the $800,000 deposit to secure their seat.

Frank Bunger, who graduated from Berkeley Haas with an MBA in 2018, began pursuing his childhood dream of space travel by starting Orion Span while still a student. The startup plans to build the Aurora Space Station to launch travelers into space by 2021.

Bunger, who is Orion Span’s CEO, has a goal to raise $2 million by Feb. 5 on SeedInvest , an online investment service, so the company can begin building a prototype. The station will accommodate six people — two crew members and four guests, who will pay $12.5 million each.

Berkeley Haas’s Kim Girard recently sat down with Bunger to talk about how his project came to be, what the space station will look like — and what his fellow Berkeley Haas classmates think of it: “I think some think I’m kooky and some think it’s cool. It’s a wide range.”

Read the full story on the Berkeley Haas website