If you’re a high-flyer on the go, you come to expect certain things: a comfortable and spacious seat, reliable Wi-Fi, and quality food paired with a cocktail. These services are common at 35,000 feet, but a new travel company is about to take luxury air travel to new heights – 100,000 feet, to be exact.
Space Perspective, the world’s first stratospheric balloon flight experience company, completed its first unmanned test flight on September 15, 2024. The successful test flight marked a milestone, and paved the way for future commercial flights and the company’s first manned flight. it will happen in 2025.
Related: Want to live or visit space? This show gives a preview
TPG spoke with Space Perspective founder Taber MacCallum and interim CEO Michael Savage to learn more about the company’s unique brand of space tourism and what the experience will entail.
What is Space Perspective?
Without a rocket, how does Space Perspective transport travelers to the stratosphere and return them safely to Earth? It’s all thanks to the Spaceship Neptune — a pressurized spherical capsule 16 feet in diameter that can carry up to eight passengers and a captain.
The tour begins at the Marine Spaceport Voyager, a 294-foot-long vessel that serves as the launch and recovery site for the Space Perspective spacecraft. Voyager currently calls Cape Canaveral, Florida, home but is designed to launch at sea-based locations around the world.
According to MacCallum, the regular flight will start in the morning (although if you buy a ticket, I think you will have more time for your start). “We’re going to inflate the balloon so that it lands on top of the capsule that’s secured on the Voyager surface,” he explained. “Then the passengers will enter the capsule, and we will give a safety briefing, similar to the briefing before a commercial flight.”
Spaceship Netptune’s capsule is then gently lifted off Voyager by SpaceBalloon’s patented Space Perspective.
When the capsule is released from the launch vehicle, it will climb gently at about 12 miles per hour for two hours, a rate that MacCallum likened to the speed of riding a bicycle. “Then we always float at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere at 100,000 meters [the highest altitude of any commercial balloon flight in the world] a few hours.”
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MacCallum continued: “Then we started the descent, which is kind of a reverse ascent. It took us about two hours to get to the blast site. [where a Splashcone at the capsule’s base will facilitate a gentle water landing] then the ship that will pick us up is waiting for us in the rebellious area.”
The shuttles will stabilize the capsule and return it to Voyager, a process that takes about 20 minutes.
My most pressing question for MacCallum had nothing to do with the technology and expertise that made this happen. I wanted to know where the name Neptune came from. MacCallum’s response did not disappoint.
“It came to me in a dream,” MacCallum said. “I really dreamed I said, ‘Spaceship Neptune.’
It certainly has a beautiful ring to it, but true to MacCallum’s long history with ballooning and space travel, it carries an important scientific meaning as well. “What is interesting about the name Neptune is that the atmosphere of the planet Neptune is mainly helium and hydrogen,” he explained. Neptune’s atmosphere is made up of the kinds of “lift gas” used to lift balloons into the air.
Who controls space tourism?
When you combine a sea-based launch pad with a spacecraft, you get, in MacCallum’s words, “multiple controllers.”
“Everything that we have that flies and all the ground operations connected to everything that flies is controlled by the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation like the spacecraft,” explained MacCallum. “And everything we do on board is controlled by the Coast Guard.”
Although the FAA does not have a defined limit for what is considered the edge of space, it classifies any vehicle intended to operate approximately 30 kilometers (or approximately 98,000 feet) from its occupants as a spacecraft.
“Once you’re 30 kilometers away or more, you’re in space,” MacCallum said. “It’s a vacuum, and you’ve got all the heat, radiation and air travel to worry about.”
Even if Space Perspective one day launches from sites outside the US, it will still be regulated as a spacecraft under the Outer Space Treaty of 1969. “No matter where we are in the world, we are US citizens and US-use operations, so we will always be controlled by the FAA,” explained MacCallum. Many countries have signed the agreement, giving Space Perspective the ability to operate worldwide.
Focus on the passenger experience
From the moment you depart to the moment you arrive, Space Perspective will provide you with the comfort, space and facilities to allow you to fully enjoy this amazing experience.
The capsule is surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows for panoramic views of the beautiful surface of the Earth. The seats are designed with safety and comfort features that rival those of any commercial airliner, and you’ll enjoy world-class food and beverage service while on board.
Even the bathroom, called the “Space Spa,” would put the toilet in a first-class airplane cabin to shame. The Space Spa is beautifully designed with a soothing color scheme and windows that allow uninterrupted views even when nature is calling.
The team at Space Perspective didn’t miss a single detail when designing the Neptune capsule again inflight information; this includes the opportunity to work with Sir Richard Branson, who will pilot the first crewed flight. The other pilots will be MacCallum and his wife, Jane Poynter, who is the founder of Space Perspective.
“Richard is an experienced balloonist,” Savage told TPG. Branson’s involvement goes beyond that of the average investor. “This is something he’s passionate about, and he brings that expertise to the table along with his commitment to the customer experience.”
Although Branson wasn’t officially involved from the start, it’s clear that the Space Perspective team shares his spirit of exceeding customer expectations. “There are challenges that come with things like flying large windows in space, but we did it because Jane wanted to drive the experience,” said Savage.
Prioritizing customer experience similarly informs the design of the capsule. “Initially we thought everyone would want a seat in front of their window, and there would be a variety of seats,” MacCallum said. “We quickly realized that this is a social experience that people want to share and we reorganized the cabin into two sets of four types of hemispherical chairs that better facilitate that kind of interaction.”
The extended flight time of six hours also gives guests time to enjoy their time in space at their own pace. “One of the reasons that having time is important is that you can think about amazing ideas when you want to, connect with other people, or have that last Facebook status update,” MacCallum said.
If you want to be among the lucky few who can tag their Facebook location with “space,” you’ll need $125,000 to buy a standard ticket for the Space Perspective flight. To date, Space Perspective has sold more than 1,800 reservations.
Most of those are for families or groups of friends who want to go the extra mile, but Space Perspective has received some pretty “out of this world” requests, too. “We already have people who have bought several tickets because they want to fly to Italy after seeing all of Florida at the edge of space,” MacCallum said.
He also pointed out that this company is contacted by many musicians who want to be the first to release music in space; another 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 map may include things that happen at night,” Savage said. “We have the ability to design customizations, and as we continue, I’m sure we’ll have a lot of fun things people can do.”
How is it different from other forms of space tourism?
Unlike other experiences offered by space travel companies, the Space Perspective flight is slow and gentle. With a faster journey into space and the weightlessness and g-forces that come with it, Space Perspective flight is closer to the experience of flying in an airplane.
That doesn’t mean the two experiences are competing. MacCallum shared that Branson sees the two as complementary. “A person who is very afraid of traveling by rocket can do this first,” he said. “They are such different events that they don’t see them competing at all.”
“If people want to have that fun and go up into space where they’re weightless, you can do that and have a great experience,” Savage said. Space Perspective, on the other hand, offers the kind of transformative experience described by astronauts after seeing Earth from a different perspective.
“Many astronauts will tell you that they became astronauts to explore space, but what they find is that their relationship with Earth changes forever,” Savage explains.
“The slow ascent and descent of the Space Perspective gives you an understanding of scale that you don’t get from a rocket. You can look out the window and see your neighborhood and your community and your region realize, ‘Maybe this Earth doesn’t exist. ‘It’s not as big as I thought it was and I should take better care of it,”’ he added.
By the end of the trip, passengers will have spent six hours traveling to and from the stratosphere, with two full hours dedicated to looking down on our planet from a height few will ever reach.
Space Perspective is set on making this life-changing journey accessible to as many people as possible.
“Imagine if every school had a teacher who would go to space,” said Savage, whose two sisters are school teachers. “They can talk to kids about exploring the area, and it can affect a lot of change.”
“There are already charities that are building to send people like teachers and other leaders into space,” MacCallum said. “There’s one called Space for Humanity that’s raising money to send people on missions 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.”
Bottom line
Space was once considered the final frontier (according to “Star Trek,” at least). Now, Space Perspective will soon take passengers “where no man has gone before” in comfort and luxury.
With state-of-the-art facilities, panoramic views and a gentle, six-hour flight to soak it all in, Space Perspective’s “space” trip to the stratosphere redefines the definition of space travel.
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