The era of private space travel is already taking off. Now, a new space tourism startup called Space Perspective, has announced its plans to bring space tourists (and research at the same time) using a balloon and a pressurized capsule. The spacecraft, baptized as Neptune , will be able to accommodate up to 8 passengers and a pilot in a round trip that will take about 6 hours (from the earth’s surface to 30.5 kilometers of altitude in the Earth’s atmosphere) with the objective of observing the curvature of our beautiful planet Earth.
How much will this space balloon ride cost?
Although the company has yet to set a fixed price, the CEOs of Space Perspective have suggested that the tickets will initially sell for about $ 125,000 (approximately € 111,000).
“Following the return of human space flight from US soil just a few weeks ago, people have never been so excited about space travel,” founder and co-CEO Taber MacCallum said in a statement. ” Few efforts are more meaningful than allowing humans to experience the inspiring perspective of our planet in space and that is what we are achieving with Space Perspective.”
Designed to be an alternative to the emerging rocket-based space tourism industry, the spacecraft’s capsule is four meters high and five meters wide in the shape of a top, attached to a giant high-altitude balloon. It will be something completely different from the rocket launches and other initiatives that we already know.
The balloon – which will be filled with hydrogen – measures almost like a football stadium, and the pressurized capsule is comfortable and spacious. It was designed to offer the crew the best possible view, so the walls are made of glass, as if they were windows, that go from the ground to the top. The roof is also designed with a transparent space, which can be seen from above.
According to the company, there would be a pilot launch with passengers from the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in early 2021, in a two-hour ascent above Earth’s atmosphere to around 30,000 meters. Here you will “sail” over the Earth for up to two hours, to allow travelers to enjoy the view and record the experience. Each “scout” on board will join an exclusive group of less than 20 people.
The spacecraft will embark on a two-hour descent under the balloon before landing in the Atlantic Ocean, where a ship will pick up the space tourists, the capsule and the balloon and transport them back to the mainland.
The idea is that this experience is accessible to as many people as possible and not the privilege of a few. “Today, it is more crucial than ever to view Earth as a planet, a spacecraft for all humanity and our global biosphere,” said Jane Poynter, co-CEO of Space Perspective.
If you are wondering when you can buy tickets to go in a balloon into space, there will still be a bit of a wait, but not long. Unmanned test flights will begin in early 2021 and the company expects to sell tickets starting in 2024. By now they expect to be fully operational and doing around 500 missions a year by the end of the decade.
In this video we can get an idea of what this trip would be like
