A San Francisco startup named after the ‘Despicable Me’ villain GRU has announced plans to build a hotel on the moon by 2032, with a $416,667-per-night price tag and a $1 million deposit, capitalizing on both pop culture and a new presidential push for lunar exploration.
They may not be stealing the moon, but a new startup is planning to build on it. In a move that blends pop culture ambition with real-world engineering, a San Francisco-based company has announced its audacious goal: to open the first hotel on the lunar surface by 2032.
The company, Galactic Resource Utilization Space, Inc., is better known by its punchy acronym, GRU Space. The name is a direct nod to the beloved animated villain from Illumination’s Despicable Me franchise, who is famously obsessed with stealing the moon. This clever branding isn’t just a marketing gimmick; it’s the central theme of the company’s identity, with its social media content featuring clips from the films.
Driving this cosmic venture is Skyler Chan, a University of California, Berkeley graduate who has been fascinated by space since he was 3 years old. According to his post on the startup accelerator Y Combinator, Chan’s mission has evolved from a personal desire to fly to space to a broader goal of enabling more people to experience it.
So, how much will a stay at the world’s most exclusive hotel cost? GRU Space is asking potential guests to put down a $1 million deposit to reserve their spot. Once booked, the first iteration of the hotel is estimated to cost a staggering $416,667 per person, per night. This first version is designed to accommodate four guests for several days, featuring a full “Environmental Control and Life Support System” for survival.
The company’s phased plan begins with building an inflatable version of the hotel on Earth, which it plans to land on the moon’s surface in 2029. Once deployed, the structure will use compressed gas to inflate into a small-scale habitable module. This first model is designed to last a minimum of 10 years on the lunar surface before requiring major repairs or replacement. Subsequent missions would focus on using the moon’s own resources, a process known as in-situ resource utilization, to build larger, more permanent structures. The v2 hotel is already taking design inspiration from San Francisco’s iconic Palace of Fine Arts.
GRU Space’s ambitions don’t end with the moon. If successful, the company hopes to leverage its technology to build “the first cities on Mars.”
The announcement of a lunar hotel arrives amidst a significant push from the U.S. government to return to the moon. On Dec. 18, President Donald Trump signed the executive order “Ensuring American Space Superiority,” which orders NASA to return Americans to the moon by 2028 and to establish “initial elements of a permanent lunar outpost by 2030.” This government directive creates a powerful backdrop for GRU Space’s commercial ambitions, aligning its timeline with national space policy.
The project’s name and visual style have already ignited a wave of discussion online, with fans of the Despicable Me franchise speculating on the potential for a real-world cameo from the character, Steve Carell, or even a sponsored mission by Illumination. While the science is daunting and the price tag is astronomical, GRU Space has successfully captured the public’s imagination by framing the next giant leap for humanity not as a sterile government program, but as an adventure worthy of a blockbuster movie.
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