You might be able to take a trip to the stratosphere with a balloon by 2024

• World View is developing a balloon-capsule system for trips to the stratosphere.
• You will fly onboard a pressurised capsule that will be carried by a giant helium balloon.
• The first trips are planned for 2024 with tickets selling for $50,000 per seat.

Fan of hot air balloons? Now you could fly into space, well almost, in something similar and as early as 2024. World View Enterprises, an American near-space exploration and technology company, is offering commercial rides to the stratosphere through a balloon-based system. Each ride will have a duration of around six to 12 hours and it will cost $50,000 per seat.

World View plans to take passengers up to an altitude of 100,000 which will let them get a view of the earth’s curvature against the backdrop of space, according to an interview by the Today Show. Passengers will fly aboard the Explorer Capsule which is a pressurised capsule that will be carried up by a massive helium balloon that’s almost the size of a football stadium. Each flight will carry eight passengers and two crew members.

The company plans to fly 3,000 balloons a year that can only be used once. According to Space.com, the balloons will be recycled to use as products that will benefit communities near the liftoff site. The journey back to earth will be taken over by a GPS-guided parafoil that will guide the capsule to a precise location for it to land. Tickets for the stratosphere ride are available now, and 250 people have already ordered them so far.

It’s not just a near-space experience that World View is offering as it plans to launch the capsule from seven sites around the world like the Aurora Borealis in Norway, Grand Canyon in the US, and the Great Barrier Reef. With this, the entire duration of the trip will be for five days.

World View promises a luxurious near-space journey with the Explorer Capsule featuring onboard video cameras that will capture your entire journey. It will also have telescopes so you can zoom in to see what’s below and also the stars above. The Explorer Capsule will also offer a variety of dining options and bars, and Wi-Fi connectivity too. World View says that the Explorer Capsule can accommodate people of all ages and physical conditions.

Not the first planned stratospheric trip

This is actually World View’s second attempt at space tourism. Its first plan was a similar balloon-capsule system called Voyager that was supposed to launch in 2016 and fly people to the stratosphere. Two of World View’s co-founders, Taber MacCallum and Jane Poynter, also started a rival company called Space Perspective that plans to offer its own space tourism with ‘Spaceship Neptune’. This balloon-capsule system is also scheduled to take off in 2024 with tickets selling for $125,000 per seat.

2024 will be the year to mark to possibly spot humongous balloons flying up in the sky.

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