A new space tourism company began to sell tickets Wednesday for six-hour balloon rides to the stratosphere starting in 2024. The price of a seat: $125,000.

The company, Florida-based Space Perspective, plans up to 25 flights in the first year into what is the second major layer of the Earth's atmosphere and extends to about 31 miles, or more than 163,000 feet, above the planet's surface.

Space Perspective becomes only the second one to offer space tourism tickets, following plans by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic to offer suborbital flights. Those plans have not yet been realized.

"The demand for space tourism is so huge that, honestly, we welcome more players in the industry and we believe in that adage that a rising tide lifts all boats," Space Perspective co-founder Jane Poynter said in an interview.

The company began to testing a capsule under a giant balloon Friday with a successful 20-mile-high flight from Florida that landed in the Gulf of Mexico. Operations are to be based at Kennedy Space Center initially, Poynter said.

Space Perspective also released a photo from Friday's test flight that shows the curvature of the Earth, a blue layer of atmosphere and the blackness of space. Such views will allow space tourists to see about 450 miles, the company said.

Up to eight passengers will ride in a pressurized capsule with an experienced pilot, a bar and a bathroom. The trip will end with a splashdown.

Branson's firm initially signed up passengers for $250,000 a seat, but halted sales after a test-flight crashed in 2014. As testing continues, seats are being sold for research and training flights, but not for space tourism.

Source: United Press International

Related Links
Space Perspective
Aerospace News at SpaceMart.com

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

NASA balloon detects California earthquake, next stop, Venus?
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 22, 2021
The technique is being developed to detect venusquakes. A new study details how, in 2019, it made the first balloon-borne detection of a quake much closer to home. Between July 4 and July 6, 2019, a sequence of powerful earthquakes rumbled near Ridgecrest, California, triggering more than 10,000 aftershocks over a six-week period. Seeing an opportunity, researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech flew instruments attached to high-altitude balloons over the region in hopes of maki ... read more