Gallery: Luxury Balloon Could Take Space Tourists 100,000 Feet Up
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Lesser known than Elon Musk and Richard Bronson's space tourism exploits is World View, a luxury flight capsule that, in an estimated four years, will start taking travelers on five hour tours through our earth’s atmosphere.
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For the design, the company turned to Priestmangoode, a British outfit specializing in transportation design.
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They’ve outfitted Thai Airways, Malaysia Airways, and Virgin with new first class cabins. But space tourism isn't just about getting people from A to B.
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As Goode sees it, the World View trips would begin before dusk. The large balloon that powers the capsule needs about an hour and half to get to 100,000 feet. After that, World View can drift into orbit for a few hours.
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A spectacle like that is its own special kind of luxury, so Goode and his team built the spacecraft around four circular windows, each of which would allow two of the six passengers (and the two crew members) a front row seat to near space.
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“You’re going 100,000 feet above the earth’s surface,” says Nigel Goode, director of Priestmangoode. “You’re seeing the curvature of earth, the blackness of space. It’s such a life changing experience—this is what it’s all about.”
