Tourists could be sent to space using a giant balloon

Tourists could be sent to space using a giant balloon

ORLANDO, FLORIDA — A new company called Space Perspective wants to send tourists and research payloads up into the stratosphere in a pressurized capsule elevated by a large balloon, according to Space.com.

The capsule is called the Spaceship Neptune and it can hold up to 9 people, including the pilot.

The capsule has large windows from which passengers will be able to observe Earth's curvature.

It will also contain a bathroom and a bar.

It will take the Spaceship Neptune roughly two hours to reach its maximum altitude of 30,000 meters or about 100,000 feet after taking off from the old Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Florida's Space Coast.

The capsule will be suspended by a large hydrogen-filled balloon.

Passengers will spend two hours suspended in the stratosphere.

Their descent back into Earth will take another two hours.

The passengers would then be picked up by a recovery boat waiting for them at sea.