Space enthusiasts will soon be able to travel inside of a luxury balloon which will float travellers 100,000 feet above the Earth, with the promise of fancy cocktails, Wi-Fi and stunning views.
1. Astronaut experience
Developed by Space Perspective, this business venture is yet another bet on space tourism, which is definitely carving out its way in the hospitality sector.
Its cofounder, Jane Poynter and her husband Taber MacCallum, gave away some details of the experience, stressing the subtlety and the softness of the experience: “If you’re looking for the fury and vibration of a rocket, you’ve come to the wrong place. Our Spaceship Neptune offers a gentle ride into space that lets clients absorb the astronaut experience.”
2. Spaceship Neptune
Dubbed Spaceship Neptune, the space balloon has the size of a football field, carrying the bulbous cabin into the sky at 12mph, roughly the same pace of a leisurely bike ride — a stark contrast with the thunderous blastoffs of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, last summer.
The interior of the lavish vehicle presents a pressurized lounge, a panopticon of windows, a bar and bathroom. Plus, the entire area is covered with Wi-Fi.
Instead of g forces tightly gluing fliers to their seats, eight passengers and one pilot will comfortably sit in recliners, chatting and sipping cocktails as they gradually zoom out on Kennedy Space Center, Spaceship Neptune’s home port. At first, passengers will slowly have a view of the Florida peninsula, then the East Coast and, eventually, a grand view of Earth itself.
“Some people would love to go pre-dawn,” says Poynter, “so you can really experience the extraordinary sky and see the iconic blue line that separates the Earth below and space. There’s almost a crazy rainbow effect.”
3. Suborbital experience
Technically, the luxury space balloon won’t reach space, but the cofounders say it replicates the suborbital rocket experience, meaning that the vehicle will cross the ill-defined boundary of space, but not fast enough to stay in space once it gets there.
The feeling of weightlessness won’t be part of the experience, but passengers are promised to enjoy “the most breathtaking six hours” of their lives, immersed in luxury and incredible views of the curvature of the Earth below and the blackness of space above.
“The way we designed it was to make it as easy as boarding a commercial aircraft,” said Poynter, explaining that passengers are picked up after a splashdown via boat. “We wanted our clients to sit back and enjoy the luxury experience.”
4. Testing and pricing
The company said it started successful test flights with prototypes during spring of 2021. The first test flight, Neptune One, flew an unpressurized capsule simulator through the entire flight profile.
Space Perspective started selling tickets for flights to take off in late 2024, at a cost of $125,000 per seat, the price to pay to “ascend on a thrilling journey” and to gain an “entirely new perspective” of our planet, otherwise known as “overview effect”.
