This isn't just a load of hot air.
Historians tell us that the first balloon to carry passengers was built by the brothers Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier and lifted off from terra firma on Sept. 19, 1783 with a sheep, a duck, and a rooster on board.
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The first recorded manned flight was made in a hot air balloon also built by the Montgolfier brothers on Nov. 21 of that same year and, from there, ballooning took off, so to speak.
🚨MAJOR MILESTONE ALERT🚨 Spaceship Neptune's capsule structure is now complete! This #capsule will be used in our next test #flight, which we are calling Flight 2. In 2021, we successfully flew a capsule simulator to #space with Flight 1. Since then, we’ve been designing and… pic.twitter.com/Pg8r72oMQq
— Space Perspective (@SpacePerspectiv) December 14, 2023
Or at least until those Wright brothers showed up in Kitty Hawk with that airplane of theirs.
Now a Titusville, Fla.-based company wants to take ballooning to new heights – and when we say "heights," we ain't kidding.
Space Perspective is looking to take passengers 100,000 feet into the stratosphere via Space Neptune, a capsule structure that will be carried high into the sky by the renewable hydrogen-filled "SpaceBalloon."
A slow ascent to the stars
The company, which was founded in 2019, bills the flights as the world's only carbon-neutral luxury spaceflight experience "with no rockets and none of the associated carbon footprint."
"Rather than blasting off, we rise slowly at 12mph, making the experience accessible to anyone medically fit to fly with a commercial airline," Space Perspective said on its website.
Our "loo with a view" is covered in @timeout: “While the entire ship offers incredible views, the toilet might just be the best seat in the house, as it offers passengers a private moment to...process the incredible experience.”#travel #design #spacehttps://t.co/nDFGrtFVIq.
— Space Perspective (@SpacePerspectiv) November 6, 2023
The company maintains that "our balloon is proven technology, used for decades already by our team on missions with NASA and other government agencies to lift research telescopes and other heavy, sensitive instruments."
Last month, the company unveiled the first images of its completed test capsule structure, announcing on X, formerly Twitter, that "Spaceship Neptune's capsule structure is now complete!"
Space Perspective successfully flew a capsule simulator to space under a SpaceBalloon in 2021, and since then the company said it has been working on the design and manufacturing of the capsule to resume testing, which will be used in upcoming uncrewed flights.
The company said it will use the data it gathered to build a commercial-grade capsule and pave the wave for crewed test flights later this year.
The capsule features nine plush seats for eight passengers and a pilot as well as panoramic views provided by the largest windows ever flown to space.
Climbing 100,000 feet
"At 100,000 feet, you'll join the very small number of humans who have witnessed and captured the Earth from such great heights," Space Perspective said in an earlier post.
There will also be a bar, and Wi-Fi and communication devices for livestreaming, so you show the folks back home what you’ve been up to.
After two hours of rising, two hours of seeing some undoubtably spectacular sights, and two hours of a slow descent, passengers will float inside the capsule in the ocean until they were picked up.
So, would you like to fly in my beautiful balloon? Well, if you want to float among the stars together, it's going to cost you. Space Perspective is booking flights on its website for $125,000 a seat.
In October, Mercedes-Maybach, Mercedes' (DDAIF) -) luxury brand, said it had partnered with the company to provide electric vehicles to shuttle explorers and guests to and from Space Perspective facilities, local activities and the launch site on Florida's Space Coast.
Space Perspective was founded by Jane Poynter, a member of the Biosphere 2 design team and original crew who lived for two years inside the sealed, self-sustaining habitat; and Taber MacCallum, former chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation who has a number of patents, including the atmospheric monitoring system used in the Biosphere.
The pair also founded Paragon Space Development, which was behind Alan Eustace's world record altitude skydive, a project that launched the former Google (GOOGL) -) executive to 135,899 feet under a helium balloon in 2014.
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