Companies offering trips to space are nothing new, but where companies like Virgin Galactic want to use a more familiar style of flying into space in a craft with wings, engines etc, World View wants to take a more relaxed route.
For $75,000 per person, the company hopes to take people up in a balloon like no other. The Tuscon based startup is hoping to use a helium balloon that will take customers to nearly 100,000 feet, which is around 10x more than the average balloon flight, although most only go to around 3000 feet!
100,000 feet really is the edge of space, so much so that the Federal Aviation Administration have declared their capsules as “space vehicles.” This classification means they have to reach a much tougher set of guidelines than typical aircraft.
The craft will hold eight people inside its pressurized capsule as it makes its 1.5 hour ascent to 100,000 feet, then it would stay there for around two hours and then back to earth to complete their 4 hour round trip. At this hight the customers would be able to see the black of space around them as well as the full curvature of the earth, awesome!
The company hopes to take of the skies in just three years.
Thank you Natmonitor for providing us with this information.
Images courtesy of World View.
