Sub-orbital balloon ride to cash in on the space tourism boom

Sub-orbital balloon ride to change travelers’ view of the world.

 

Majestic views of our planet, slowly expanding below, are certain to captivate you, as you ascend to the edge of space. Following in the
footstepts of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space travel project, Arizona-based company World View Enterprises is seeking to cash in on the space tourism boom. World View Enterprises announced the offering of rides in a World View capsule attached to a helium balloon 30 kilometers (20 miles) up.

 

The capsule will carry 8 people to over 30 kilometers by menas of a helium balloon with flights starting at Spaceport America in New Mexico.  The travelers will experience the space environment, including a period of weightlessness and the iconic space view. They will do so from the pressurized, space qualified World View Spaceflight Capsule, designed to operate in, and protect the human body from the near-vacuum, radiation, micrometeoroid, and extreme thermal environment of outer space.

“The transition from horizon to the blackness of space will thrill you. The luxurious comfort and gentle glide of your vessel will spoil you
for hours, while you sip your beverage of choice. The curvature of the Earth will simply take your breath away. A truly transformative human experience.Passengers will be among the few to have seen the curvature of the Earth with their own eyes,” the statement said.

“They will be able to gaze at the astounding views, the blackness of space, the brilliance of stars and the thin veil of atmosphere
enveloping our planet – scenes previously witnessed exclusively by astronauts – for $75,000,” it added.

“Seeing the Earth hanging in the ink-black void of space will help people realize our connection to our home planet and to the universe
around us, and will surely offer a transformative experience to our customers,” said Jane Poynter, CEO of World View and co-founder of Paragon Space Development Corporation, the company developing the capsule.

The capsule will return and land in the space of 20 to 40 minutes, and the return will include a perioad of free-fall followed by aerodynamic
deceleration as a deployed parafoil becomes progressively more effective.

 

Starting in 2014, Virgin Galactic plans flights at the sub-orbital altitude for $250,000 (180,000 euros) for a ticket. World View
Enterprises’s two hours trip in the “luxuriously appointed space-qualified capsule”.will cost $75,000 (55,000 euros).