If you're trying to avoid airborne viruses, heading to a near vacuum might not be the worst idea.
A Florida company is planning to fly passengers to the edge of space in a high-tech version of a hot air balloon, with a pilot and up to eight travelers riding in a pressurized capsule suspended from an enormous blimp.
Human space flight company Space Perspective is
now taking reservations on its Spaceship Neptune for flights in early 2024, with tickets priced firmly in the once-in-a-lifetime bracket at $125,000 per person.
The refundable reservation deposits are tiered, with higher down payments needed for Year One flights and decreasing for later bookings.
The inaugural test flight took off on June 18 from the Space Coast Spaceport in Titusville, Florida. The six hour and 39-minute flight was uncrewed, but cameras on board captured a stunning image of the Earth at sunrise............
The six-hour trips will involve a two-hour gentle ascent above 99% of the Earth's atmosphere to 100,000 feet. There'll then be another leisurely two hours for passengers to enjoy the 360-degree views from the cabin before the spaceship makes its two-hour descent to the ocean, where it will splash down safely. Voyage to shore will be completed by ship.
The spaceship was designed in collaboration with UK design studio PriestmanGoode.
"We looked at all the different elements that would make the experience not just memorable, but truly comfortable as well," Nigel Goode, designer and cofounder of PriestmanGoode said last year. "We wanted to make sure that passengers would be able to get 360-degree unobstructed views and that we created an efficient space that would enable them to move around during the journey."
The capsule is five meters in diameter, while the polyethylene balloon above has a 100-meter diameter when fully inflated, about the length of a football field...........
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...dge-of-space-by-2021/ar-AALlKkF?ocid=msedgntp