Starting in 2024, a Tucson company plans to send people to the edge of space to see some of the world's wonders from a new vantage point.World View is designing a space capsule that will allow up to eight passengers to take a six- to eight-hour trip to Earth's stratosphere.Passengers will sit around massive windows and will be served a meal and drinks. Think first-class flying.
World View marketing director Phil Wocken shows a used balloon. It's as thick as a plastic sandwich bag. Photo: Jessica Boehm/AxiosThink hot air balloon. A 590-foot-long balloon, made out of plastic no thicker than a sandwich bag, will lift the vessel to the edge of space when filled with helium. It will take about two hours to ascend and 1½ hours to get back to Earth, both at a gentle elevator-like pace, Wocken said.Wocken says World View uses helium and not hydrogen, like some other up-and-coming space tourism companies, because it is nonflammable and nonexplosive.
Before launching, passengers will spend five days exploring the area around the spaceport so they can have a full appreciation for the piece of the Earth they're viewing before they see it from the edge of space, he says.World View started in Tucson in 2012 with a very specific mission: create a balloon lift system that would allow Google engineer Alan Eustace to break the world record for highest skydive.
Comet Vomit. No thanks.
There is no doubt that we must immediately raise taxes so we can afford to get to work on the tasks that are necessary to providing our children and their children a realistic opportunity for a healthy and sustainable future.