It's been a long time coming, but it finally seems like our world will be getting its very first and only carbon-neutral spaceship. Ok, it's not exactly a spaceship, as it won't pass over the generally agreed-upon boundary to space, the mighty Karman line (62 miles/100 km above the surface of the planet). But it is certainly about to take people much higher than a commercial plane, and definitely much higher than what you get in a balloon.
Why balloon? Because this spacecraft (more of a space capsule, really), will not be strapped to a rocket and launched off a pad somewhere, but will depart the planet's surface attached to a massive balloon that will be capable of carrying it to altitudes as high as 100,000 feet (30 km).
The idea belongs to a company called Space Perspective, run in part by a crew of people that back in 2014 helped former Google VP of engineering, Alan Eustace, beat Felix Baumgartner's record for a jump from the stratosphere, after being taken to an altitude of 41.419 km (25.736 miles) by means of a balloon.
The Space Perspective idea is simple: a pressurized capsule with walls largely made of panoramic windows is strapped to a huge balloon the size of a football stadium called, how else, SpaceBalloon, and raised to the above-mentioned altitude from the Kennedy Space Center.
Once there, paying customers should get a chance to experience our planet from the let's call it edge of space for a full two hours, a lot more than the several minutes current space tourism companies (read Virgin Galactic) allow in their rocket-powered spaceships.
Because together with the trip up and the descent for a splashdown somewhere in the ocean the total duration of the flight is expected to last for up to six hours, the spacecraft these guys are planning is not your average spartan capsule. Instead, it comes with things like a refreshment bar, a lavatory, and a wi-fi connection.
Because it's supposed to house up to eight people plus the pilot at a time, we were kind of expecting the capsule, called Neptune, to be quite large. But that's not the vibe we get from the fresh images Space Perspective released, showing the spacecraft under construction at one of its facilities.
I mean, sure, it does look like it will fit eight people plus the pilot, seated in a circular pattern on the walls, but when you throw in the refreshment bar and bathroom into the mix it could turn a bit claustrophobic.
It's unclear if what we're seeing is just a prototype or the spacecraft the company will actually use to conduct flights to the edge of space.
When the time comes (and it's unclear when that will be, 2025, maybe), Space Perspective will charge $125,000 for a ticket. That may seem like much, seeing this is essentially only a balloon flight, but you do have to consider the many aspects involved, including a recovery ship standing at the ready to retrieve the passengers and the capsule from the water. And also, is less than half what Virgin is charging for a few minutes of zero g.
Last time we checked, Space Perspective said it already had 30 flights booked.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
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