Balloon trips would soar 20 miles high
World View Experience, a space-tourism venture, has opened an office in Las Vegas. The company, which is partly run by NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, who flew the final mission of the space shuttle Endeavour, plans to take tourists to the upper limits of the earth’s atmosphere in a helium balloon.
According to Vegasinc.com, the adventures could begin by 2016 and may include launch sites in Nevada as well as Arizona.
The proposed high-flying trips would take six passengers and two crew members in a pressurized capsule suspended below a paraglider wing and a 300-foot helium balloon. At the pinnacle of the experience, the craft would reach an altitude of more than 100,000 feet—that’s almost 20 miles above the earth’s surface. It’s high enough for passengers to see the galaxy and the curvature of their home planet.
The cost is also out of this world: $75,000 a passenger. But that’s actually a bargain compared to some space tourism packages, says co-founder Jane Poynter, and passengers won’t require any special training or extra equipment to climb aboard.
She says Sin City is the perfect place to have an office. “With Las Vegas having this incredible center of high-end tourism—luxury tourism is flourishing here—it fits World View extremely well,” she said.
