Space Perspective plans its first manned flight in 2025
If you’re a frequent flyer in the front cabin, you’ll expect certain things: comfortable and spacious seats, reliable Wi-Fi, and a quality meal with a cocktail to go with it. These amenities are commonly found at 35,000 feet, but a new travel company is about to take the luxury flight experience to a whole new level — 100,000 feet, to be exact.
Space perspectivethe world’s first stratospheric balloon flight experience company, completed its first unmanned test flight on September 15, 2024. The successful test flight marked a milestone and paved the way for future commercial flights as well as the company’s first manned flight. location in 2025.
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TPG spoke with Space Perspective co-founder Taber MacCallum and interim CEO Michael Savage to learn more about the company’s unique brand of space tourism and the experiences it will offer.
What is spatial perspective?
Without rockets, how would Space Perspective transport tourists into the stratosphere and return them safely to Earth? It’s all thanks to the Spaceship Neptune – a spherical pressurized capsule 16 feet in diameter that can accommodate up to eight passengers and a captain.
The journey begins at the Marine Spaceport Voyager, a 294-foot ship that serves as the launch and recovery site for Space Perspective’s spacecraft. The Voyager currently calls Cape Canaveral, Florida home but is designed to launch from ocean locations around the globe.
According to MacCallum, a typical flight will start in the morning (although if you buy a ticket, I’d assume you’ll have some influence over your departure time). “We will inflate the balloon so that it stands firmly on the capsule with the capsule secured to the deck of the Voyager,” he explains. “The passenger will then enter the cabin and we will provide a safety briefing, similar to pre-flight announcements on commercial aircraft.”
The Spaceship Netptune capsule was then gently lifted off the Voyager via Space Perspective’s patented SpaceBalloon.
Once the capsule is released from the launch vehicle, it will gently ascend at about 12 miles per hour for two hours, a speed MacCallum likened to that of riding a bicycle. “Then we’re still floating above Earth’s atmosphere at 100,000 feet [the highest altitude of any commercial balloon flight in the world] within a few hours.”
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MacCallum continued: “Then we started to descend, a kind of reverse of the ascent. We descended for about two hours to the drop-off point.” [where a Splashcone at the capsule’s base will facilitate a gentle water landing] and then the rescue ship is waiting for us at the crash site.”
The boat will stabilize the capsule and lift it back to the Voyager, a process that takes about 20 minutes.
My most pressing question for MacCallum has nothing to do with the technology and expertise that made this possible. I simply want to know where the name Neptune comes from. MacCallum’s answer did not disappoint.
“It came to me in a dream,” MacCallum told me. “I actually had a dream saying ‘That’s the Neptune spacecraft.'”
It certainly has an interesting meaning, but true to MacCallum’s long history with ballooning and space travel, it also carries an important scientific significance. “The interesting thing about the name Neptune is that the atmosphere of the planet Neptune is mostly helium and hydrogen,” he explains. Neptune’s atmosphere is essentially made up of “lift gases” used to lift balloons into the air.
Who manages space tourism?
When you combine a sea launch site and a spacecraft, you get, in MacCallum’s words, “a lot of regulatory authority.”
“Everything we have that flies and all the ground operations associated with everything that flies is managed by the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation as a spacecraft,” MacCallum explains. ”. “And everything we do on board is regulated by the Coast Guard.”
Although the FAA has no defined limits on what is considered the edge of space, it does classify any vehicle intended to operate at a distance of approximately 30 kilometers (or about 98,000 feet) with a person inside as spaceship.
“When you’re at an altitude of 30 kilometers or more, you’re essentially in space,” MacCallum said. “It’s basically a vacuum and you have all the heat, radiation and navigation problems of an airplane.”
Even if Space Perspective one day launches from locations outside the United States, it will still be managed as a spacecraft under the 1969 Outer Space Treaty. “No matter where we are on this planet , we are both US citizens and a US citizen-operated operation, so we will always be regulated by the FAA,” MacCallum explained. Most countries are signatories to the treaty, giving Space Perspective the ability to operate worldwide.
Focus on passenger experience
From the moment you take off until you land, Space Perspective will provide the comfort, space and amenities to fully enjoy this remarkable experience.
The capsule is surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows for panoramic views of Earth’s scenic journey. Seats are designed with safety and comfort elements that rival any commercial aircraft, and you’ll enjoy world-class dining while on board.
Even the toilet, dubbed the “Space Spa”, puts the toilets in airplane first class to shame. Space Spa is beautifully designed with soothing tones and windows that allow for uninterrupted views even when nature calls.
The team at Space Perspective left no detail unturned when designing the Neptune capsule And in-flight experience; This includes the opportunity to work with Sir Richard Bransonwho will be the co-pilot on the first crewed flight. The other co-pilots will be MacCallum and his wife, Space Perspective co-founder Jane Poynter.
“Richard is a very experienced balloonist,” Savage told TPG. Branson’s involvement goes beyond that of a typical investor. “This is something he’s personally very passionate about, and he brings that expertise to the table along with his commitment to the customer experience.”
Although Branson did not officially join early, it is clear that the team at Space Perspective shares his spirit of exceeding customer expectations. “There are challenges that come with things like flying through the largest window in space, but we did it because Jane wanted the experience,” Savage said.
Prioritizing the customer experience is similarly informed by the capsule’s layout. “Originally we thought people would want a seat right in front of their window and there would be a kind of circle of chairs,” MacCallum said. “We immediately recognized that this was a social experience that people wanted to share with each other and rearranged the cabin into two sets of four hemispherical seats to better facilitate that type of interaction. .”
The six-hour flight time also gives travelers time to enjoy their time in space in a way that impresses them. “One of the reasons time is so important is that you can reflect on amazing vistas if you want, interact with others or update your latest status on Facebook,” says MacCallum.
If you want to be among the lucky few who can tag their Facebook location as “space,” you’ll need $125,000 to buy a standard ticket for a Space Perspective flight. To date, Space Perspective has sold more than 1,800 reservations.
Many of them are for families or groups of friends wanting the ultimate getaway, but Space Perspective has also received some pretty “out of this world” requests. “We had people who bought some tickets because they wanted to fly and see Italy after seeing all of Florida from the edge of space,” MacCallum said.
He also revealed that the company has been approached by several artists who want to be the first to release music from the space; one passenger wanted to remove some seats and put a grand piano in to perform in the space.
Although the journey was designed to last six hours, the ship could last much longer. “Our long-term roadmap could include overnight experiences,” Savage said. “We have the ability to design custom experiences, and once we get going, I’m sure we’ll have a lot of fun things people can do.”
How is it different from other types of space tourism?
Unlike other experiences offered by space tourism companies, the Space Perspective flight is slow and gentle. Instead of an accelerated journey into space and the weightlessness and g-forces that come with it, Space Perspective flight is closer to the experience of flying in an airplane.
That doesn’t mean these two experiences are in competition with each other. MacCallum shares that Branson even sees the two as complementary. “Someone who is too scared to travel by rocket could do it first,” he said. “They were such different experiences that he really didn’t see them as competition.”
“If people want that thrill and fly into space to the point of weightlessness, you can do that and have a great experience,” Savage said. Space Perspective, on the other hand, provides the kind of transformative experience that astronauts describe after seeing Earth from a different vantage point.
“Many astronauts will tell you that they became astronauts to explore space, but what they discovered was that their relationship with Earth was changed forever,” Savage explains.
“The Slow Ascent and Descension Space Perspective gives you an understanding of scale that you can’t get with a rocket. You can look out the window and see the neighborhood, then the your community and state and realize, ‘Maybe this Earth isn’t ‘it’s not as big as I thought it was and I should take better care of it,'” he added.
By the end of the journey, passengers will have spent six hours traveling to and from the stratosphere, with two full hours looking down on our planet from a vantage point that very few people can reach.
Space Perspective aims to make this life-changing journey accessible to as many people as possible.
“Imagine if every school had a teacher who had actually traveled to space,” said Savage, whose two sisters are school teachers. “They can talk to kids about space exploration and that will affect fundamental change.”
“There have been charities established to send people like teachers and other leaders to space,” MacCallum shares. “There is a person named Space for humanity it’s about raising money to send people to experiences like this. They’ve sent people to Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, so there’s a very large and growing philanthropic component to sending people to space.”
Bottom line
Space was once considered the final frontier (at least according to “Star Trek”). Now, Space Perspective will soon take passengers “where no man has gone before” in luxury and comfort.
With premium amenities, panoramic views and a gentle six-hour flight to soak in, Space Perspective’s “atmospheric” journey to the stratosphere is redefining what space travel means .
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