SpaceX, Virgin Galaxy and a number of other companies are competing to be the first to launch commercial space tourism. They are all designing rockets and spaceships that will blast paying passengers to the outer edge of the Earth’s atmosphere. But one British design company is taking an alternative approach – it’s designed a ‘space balloon’.
London-based company Priestman Goode is behind the project to design the hot-air balloon powered spaceship it has named Neptune. Co-founder and designer Nigel Goode is aiming for a capsule that will offer passenger 360-degree views back to Earth and out to the solar system and beyond.
Complete with bar and bathroom, Neptune is designed to carry up to eight passengers and a pilot. The balloon will reach a height of 100,000 feet and take around two hours to travel gently back to Earth at the end of the trip to the outer edge of our atmosphere. Only 20 non-astronauts have ever reached 100,000 ft., which is above 99% of Earth’s atmosphere.
Nasa has contributed its expertise to the design of Neptune and unmanned trial flights are planned for as early as next year. If trials are successful, manned trips that are expected to cost around £95,000 a head would be expected to begin commercial operations within another two years. The plan is for excursions in the space balloon to take around 6 hours in total, split between a 2-hour descent, 2-hours to enjoy the beautiful views from the edge of space and a 2-hour descent.
While certainly not affordable as a day-trip for most of us, the £95,000 cost of a ticket for Neptune would still represent a budget alternative to the £150,000 Virgin Galaxy customers are expected to pay for a seat on a rocketship flying to a similar height. Other companies planning on offering space tourism within the next few years include Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin.
However, Mr Goode is optimistic that Neptune will offer a passenger experience that may appeal more to many would-be space day-trippers. He explains:
“Our starting point was the passenger experience. We looked at all the different elements that would make the experience not just memorable but comfortable as well and included essentials for a journey of six hours, such as a lavatory.”
Neptune’s first unmanned flight is scheduled for early next year, with take-off from the Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The balloon that will carry the capsule to 100,000 ft., is filled with hydrogen and based on technology used by Nasa to fly large research telescopes into position high above the Earth.
The project is being run and financed by start-up Space Perspective, whose founder Jane Poynter added:
“The design of the capsule is a critical component of providing our explorers [with] the inspirational experience that astronauts describe of seeing our Earth in space. The team at Priestman Goode worked with us to create that experience with Spaceship Neptune, giving it an off-world yet classic design, while meeting a wide range of human factors, engineering, manufacturing and operating requirements.”