Space Perspective plans first manned flight for 2025 – The Points Guy

If you’re a frequent forward-cabin passenger, you expect a few things: a comfortable and spacious seat, reliable Wi-Fi, and a quality meal accompanied by a cocktail. These amenities are common at 35,000 feet, but a new tourism company is about to take the luxury flight experience to whole new heights – 100,000 feet.

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 major milestone, and it paved the way for future commercial flights and the company’s first manned flight, which will take place in 2025.

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TPG spoke with Space Perspective co-founder Tabor McCallum and interim CEO Michael Savage to learn more about the company’s unique brand of space tourism and the experience.

What is space perspective?

Without rockets, how does Space Perspective take passengers to the stratosphere and return them safely to Earth? It’s all thanks to Spaceship Neptune – a spherical pressurized capsule 16 feet in diameter that can accommodate eight passengers and a captain.

The journey begins at Marine Spaceport Voyager, a 294-foot-long ship that serves as the launch and recovery point for Space Perspective’s spacecraft. Voyager currently calls Cape Canaveral, Florida, its home, but is designed to launch from marine-based sites around the world.

According to McCallum, a typical flight would start in the morning (although if you buy a ticket, I imagine you’ll have some influence on its launch time). “We will inflate the balloon so that it stands above the capsule and the capsule remains safely on the deck of Voyager,” he said. “Then the passengers will enter the capsule, and we will give a safety briefing, which is similar to a pre-flight briefing on a commercial airliner.”

The SpaceShipOne Neptune capsule is gently lifted off of Voyager via Space Perspective’s patented spaceballoon.

When the capsule is released from the launch vessel, it will climb slowly at about 12 miles per hour for two hours, a rate that McCallum compared to the speed of bicycling. “Then we float at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere at 100,000 feet (the highest altitude of any commercial balloon flight in the world) for a few hours.”

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McCallum continued: “Then we begin the descent, which is the opposite of the ascent. We descend for about two hours to reach the splashdown (where a splashcone at the base of the capsule will facilitate a gentle water landing). And then the recovery ship is waiting for us at the splashdown location.”

The boats will stabilize the capsule and return it to Voyager, a process that will take about 20 minutes.

My most important question for McCallum had nothing to do with the technology and expertise that made all this possible. I was just dying to know where the name Neptune came from. McCallum’s reply did not disappoint.

“It came to me in a dream,” McCallum told me. “I literally had a dream, ‘This is Spaceship Neptune.'”

It certainly has a nice ring to it, but given McCallum’s long history with ballooning and space travel, it also has an important scientific meaning. “The funny thing about the name Neptune is that the atmosphere of the planet Neptune is largely helium and hydrogen,” he explained. Neptune’s atmosphere is essentially made up of the type of “lift gas” used to lift balloons into the air.

Who controls space tourism?

When you combine a sea-based launch point and a spacecraft, you get, in McCallum’s words, “a lot of regulators.”

“Everything we have that flies and all the ground operations associated with everything that flies is regulated as a spacecraft by the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation,” McCallum explained. “And everything we do on the ship is regulated by the Coast Guard.”

Although the FAA does not have a defined limit on what is considered the edge of space, it classifies any vehicle that travels about 30 kilometers (or about 98,000 feet) with people on board as a spacecraft.

“Once you get to 30 kilometers or above, you’re essentially in space,” McCallum said. “It’s essentially a vacuum, and you have all the thermal, radiation and navigation concerns of an aircraft.”

Even if Space Perspective one day launches from sites outside the US, it will still be regulated as a spacecraft under the 1969 Outer Space Treaty. “No matter where we are on the planet, we are American citizens and an American-run operation, so we will always be regulated by the FAA,” McCallum explained. Most countries are signatories to this treaty, giving Space Perspective the ability to operate around the world.

Focus on passenger experience

From the moment you take off to the moment you land, Space Perspective will provide you with the comfort, space and facilities to fully enjoy this remarkable experience.

The capsule is surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows for panoramic views of the scenic journey above Earth. The seats are designed with safety and comfort elements that rival any commercial aircraft, and you’ll enjoy world-class food and beverage service onboard.

Even the restroom, also known as a “space spa,” would put first-class airplane cabin restrooms to shame. The space spa has been beautifully designed with a soothing color scheme and windows that provide uninterrupted views even when nature calls.

The Space Perspective team didn’t leave out a single detail when designing the Neptune capsule. And flying experience; It also included the opportunity to work together sir richard bransonWho will be the co-pilot in the first crewed flight. The other co-pilots will be McCallum and his wife Jane Poynter, co-founder of Space Perspective.

“Richard is a very experienced balloonist,” Savage told TPG. Branson’s involvement goes far beyond that of an ordinary investor. “This is something he is personally very passionate about, and he brings that expertise to bear along with his commitment to the customer experience.”

Although Branson was not formally involved at the beginning, it is clear that the team at Space Perspective shares his passion for exceeding customer expectations. Savage said, “There are some challenges that come with things like flying through the biggest windows in space, but we did it because Jane wanted to experience the drive.”

The layout of the capsule was also informed by giving priority to customer experience. McCallum said, “We originally thought everyone would want a seat right in front of their window, and there would be a series of seats.” “We quickly realized that this is a social experience that people want to share with each other and we rearranged the cabin into two sets of four hemispherical seats that better facilitate this kind of interaction. “

The extended six-hour flight time also gives guests time to enjoy their time in space in a way that suits them. “One of the reasons it’s important to have time is so you can concentrate on amazing views, interact with other people, or update your last Facebook status,” McCallum said.

If you want to be among the lucky ones who can tag their Facebook location as “space,” you’ll need $125,000 to purchase a standard ticket for the Space Perspective flight. To date, Space Perspective has sold more than 1,800 reservations.

Many of them are for families or friend groups who want to go on the ultimate vacation, but Space Perspective has also received some “out of this world” requests. “We already have people who have purchased multiple tickets because they want to fly and see Italy after seeing all of Florida from the edge of space,” McCallum said.

He also revealed that the company has been contacted by several artists who want to be the first to release music from space; A passenger wants to remove some seats and install a grand piano to perform in the space.

Although the trip is designed to last six hours, the capsule can last much longer. “Our long-term roadmap may include overnight experiences,” Savage said. “We have the ability to design custom experiences, and as we move forward, 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, Space Perspective’s flight is slow and gentle. Instead of fast-paced space travel and the weightlessness and g-forces that come with it, a space perspective flight is closer to the experience of flying in an airplane.

This does not mean that the two experiences are in competition with each other. McCallum shared that Branson also sees the two as complementing each other. He said, “The person who is very afraid of traveling on a rocket can do it first.” “They’re such different experiences that he doesn’t really see them as competition.”

“If people want that thrill and want to go up to a point in space where they’re weightless, 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, only to find that their relationship to Earth has been forever changed,” Savage said.

“The space perspective of a slow ascent and descent gives you a sense of scale that you don’t get with a rocket. You can look out the window and see and feel your neighborhood and then your community and your state. ‘Maybe it’s the Earth,’ he said, ‘It’s not as big as I thought it was and I should take better care of it.’

By the end of the trip, passengers will have spent six hours traveling up to the stratosphere, while having a full two hours to view our planet from a vantage point few people can reach.

Space Perspective is set to make this life-changing journey accessible to as many people as possible.

“Imagine if every school had a teacher who had actually been to space,” said Savage, whose two sisters are school teachers. “They can talk to kids about space exploration, and it will influence radical change.”

“There are already charities being created to send people like teachers and other leaders to space,” McCallum shared. “There’s one called space for humanity He’s raising money to send people on experiences like this. They’ve already sent people on Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, so there’s a very large and growing philanthropic component to sending people into space.”