Spanish high altitude tourist balloon company prepares for first test flight
The Spanish high altitude tourist balloon company HALO is preparing to do the first test flight in December from India, with the second test flight planned for the first quarter of 2023 from Spain.
The Madrid-based company will take tourists to the edge of space in a capsule attached to a balloon – with prices from £87,000 to £174,000 (100,000 to 200,000 Euros).
The final capsule design will have capacity for 8 passengers and a pilot and feature panoramic windows which allow 360-degree views of the Earth at an altitude of up to 25 miles.
…The first commercial flights are expected to start in 2025 and the company plans to operate in four continents, making a total of 400 commercial trips with 3,000 passengers per year from 2029.
This market now appears to have three companies vying for customers, the American companies World View and Space Perspectives, and this Spanish company.
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The Spanish high altitude tourist balloon company HALO is preparing to do the first test flight in December from India, with the second test flight planned for the first quarter of 2023 from Spain.
The Madrid-based company will take tourists to the edge of space in a capsule attached to a balloon – with prices from £87,000 to £174,000 (100,000 to 200,000 Euros).
The final capsule design will have capacity for 8 passengers and a pilot and feature panoramic windows which allow 360-degree views of the Earth at an altitude of up to 25 miles.
…The first commercial flights are expected to start in 2025 and the company plans to operate in four continents, making a total of 400 commercial trips with 3,000 passengers per year from 2029.
This market now appears to have three companies vying for customers, the American companies World View and Space Perspectives, and this Spanish company.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
How it was done in the olde days:
“Lawnchair Larry flight
On July 2, 1982, Larry Walters (April 19, 1949 – October 6, 1993) made a 45-minute flight in a homemade airship made of an ordinary patio chair and 45 helium-filled weather balloons. The aircraft rose to an altitude of about 16,000 feet (4,900 m), drifted from the point of liftoff in San Pedro, California, and entered controlled airspace near Long Beach Airport. During the landing, the aircraft became entangled in power lines, but Walters was able to climb down safely.
Walters attached 43 of the balloons to his lawn chair, filled them with helium, put on a parachute, and strapped himself into the chair in the backyard of a home at 1633 West 7th Street in San Pedro. He took his pellet gun (to shoot the balloons to descend), a CB radio, sandwiches, beer, and a camera.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawnchair_Larry_flight
16,000 feet! Surprised he didn’t suffer hypoxia. Don’t pilots have to use supplemental oxygen above 10,000 feet in unpressurized aircraft? Also, it’s pretty cold at that altitude.
16,000 ft is fine Everest is almost 30 thousand feet and they really only use O2 above 20,000.
The death zone is over 26 thousand feet but depending on your health and physical activity 12 thousand feet could be your limit.
Look at those people who need supplemental O2 just walking the mall.