Travel agency buys two Space Perspective high altitude balloon flights
Graphic of Space Perspective’s Neptune capsule.
The travel agency Cruise Planners has reserved two future 20-mile-high flights on the high altitude balloon Spaceship Neptune, being built by the Florida-based company Space Perspective.
Cruise Planners has reserved two full capsules scheduled to fly in 2025 & 2027 respectively on Spaceship Neptune.
Spaceship Neptune will differ from other spacecraft by being attached and secured to the SpaceBalloon for the entirety of the flight, making it a safe and seamless journey for the traveler. Other vessels separate mid-flight and transfer to different flight systems. According to Space Perspective, Spaceship Neptune will be lifted to space by the SpaceBalloon, powered by renewable hydrogen with no rockets and no carbon footprint. Guests won’t have the jarring blastoff that is typical of space travel, but instead will ascend steadily at 12 mph, making the experience accessible for anyone who is able to fly with a commercial airline.
Space Perspective is one of three balloon companies now planning such high altitude flights. Ticket prices will range from $50K to $125K, depending on company. At the moment Space Perspective is charging the most, but expect that to change as the competition heats up.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Graphic of Space Perspective’s Neptune capsule.
The travel agency Cruise Planners has reserved two future 20-mile-high flights on the high altitude balloon Spaceship Neptune, being built by the Florida-based company Space Perspective.
Cruise Planners has reserved two full capsules scheduled to fly in 2025 & 2027 respectively on Spaceship Neptune.
Spaceship Neptune will differ from other spacecraft by being attached and secured to the SpaceBalloon for the entirety of the flight, making it a safe and seamless journey for the traveler. Other vessels separate mid-flight and transfer to different flight systems. According to Space Perspective, Spaceship Neptune will be lifted to space by the SpaceBalloon, powered by renewable hydrogen with no rockets and no carbon footprint. Guests won’t have the jarring blastoff that is typical of space travel, but instead will ascend steadily at 12 mph, making the experience accessible for anyone who is able to fly with a commercial airline.
Space Perspective is one of three balloon companies now planning such high altitude flights. Ticket prices will range from $50K to $125K, depending on company. At the moment Space Perspective is charging the most, but expect that to change as the competition heats up.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
“expect that to change as the competition heats up”
… if the competition can get around the patent-office. The July presser boasts of several new technologies. A competitor will either have to pay through the proboscis or else must come up with new windows, new capsules, new balloons, a new landing-system, maybe new thermal-control (if they want humans on board).
Or, you know, go to court and/or lobby a Senator. That seems to be the American Way nowadays.
“According to Space Perspective, Spaceship Neptune will be lifted to space by the SpaceBalloon, powered by renewable hydrogen ”
Renewable Hydrogen?!? How about flammable hydrogen? I get that hydrogen is only flammable after the introduction of oxygen and then a spark, but leaks and sparks happen, as the Hindenburg discovered
I wonder what precautions (design, operations, combinations of the two) they are taking to NOT become Hindenburg 2? It is a short jump and a long fall from 20 miles up.
Doubting Thomas: hydrogen-balloons and airships were in use for decades before 1933 when hydrogen was well understood as a burny gas. They rarely had the spectacular failure of Hindenberg. They were even used in war: if it was all that easy to blow them up (rather than puncture them) then the actual real-life Herr Hindenberg and the rest of the Kaiser’s command-staff would have retired them immediately. Casey Handmer has blogged on schemes to return the zeppelin to glory with newer fabrics and overall technology.
Looking up the wiki page, one worry for future balloons stands out: lightning. The weather better be excellent and the ship better have a plan for static discharge, especially up high and dry.