Taking travel to a whole other level!

Imagine if you could see all the wonders of the world and more but from the edge of space.

Stratospheric ballooning company World View has just opened up reservations to get in line for epic five-day balloon voyages that promise to take travelers 100,000 feet above some of the most magnificent landmarks on the planet.

Want to check whether you can see the Great Wall of China from space? World View’s goal is to be able to let passengers discover it with their own eyes.

The company’s first commercial flights are slated to begin in early 2024, with Grand Canyon National Park as the location for its first spaceport, and trips are priced at $50,000 (AED183,660) per seat.

The company claims in its press release that “the World View space tourism experience is the most affordable, longest duration and most accessible space experience on Earth.”

The idea is that flights will take off from these premium locations and lift eight passengers and two crew members up to 100,000 feet altitude, about four times higher than a standard commercial airplane flight, and nearly 23 miles into the stratosphere.

They’ll zoom on up there in a zero-pressure balloon and pressurized space capsule, which will then gently float in the atmosphere, allowing guests to experience the Earth’s curvature and the awesome darkness of space.

Each trip onboard the craft will last six to 12 hours, during which time guests can enjoy the inflight dining and bar and internet data connection, make use of the inflight concierge, check out the Earth-view cameras, star-view telescopes, and individual viewing screens, or just chill on the fully reclining seats.

It’s all part of what promises to be a five-day immersive experience during which participants will be offered trips out from the spaceports to explore the local wonders at ground level.

Okay. Well, the world is already struggling and nothing else has worked yet, so why not try the stratospheric thing?

Space Perspective is currently a little ahead in the balloon race, it made its test flight back in June 2021. And this year there are been edge-of-space missions galore, with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic all striving to go zero-gravity.

With World View once again throwing its hat in the ring, the stratosphere is threatening to get a little busy.

Tickets are now available for flights starting in 2024.

Source: Agencies