Space Perspective Offering A Different Kind Of Space Flight Experience

For as long as humans have lived on earth, people have dreamed of journeying to the stars. The pioneering flight of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961 proved that it was possible. The astounding achievement of NASA’s Apollo moon landings less than a decade later provided still further evidence of humanity’s future destiny.

And yet for much of the last sixty years, the prospect of everyday tourist flights to space has seemed more like science fiction than science fact. During the intervening era, space travel has been frustratingly limited; almost entirely restricted to professional, highly trained astronauts on state funded missions. At the time of writing, fewer than six hundred people have followed Gagarin into space. Of these, only a tiny number could possibly be described as ‘tourists’, paying their own way into orbit.

Yet today, the prospect of everyday space tourism has never seemed closer. The summer of 2021 has seen first Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson and then Amazon’s Jeff Bezos achieve their boyhood dream of experiencing the blackness of space and a view of the Earth from far above.

And yet… this spectacular achievement has been met with criticism and scepticism by many. Is it all not just a billionaires-only club, funded by mega-rich men with way too much money on their hands, squabbling over who has the best rocket?

And in truth, neither Branson nor Bezos will be offering their future passengers much more than a few minutes in space. Bezos’s New Sheppard rocket flights are expected to take around 11 minutes, of which just over three will be spent actually in space.

Meanwhile, Branson’s Virgin Galactic service offers a little more. His trip will last around two hours, but only because his rocket powered spaceplane has to be lifted into the stratosphere by a more conventional jet powered plane. Once the carrier jet has reached around 50,000 feet and the spaceplane is released, it will be back on Earth within fifteen minutes, offering its passengers around four minutes in space.

Furthermore, during those brief few minutes, the view will be limited. Both Bezos’s New Sheppard capsule and Branson’s VSS spaceplane offer several porthole style windows to enable passengers to admire the view, but the outlook will be far from panoramic. With tickets at around £250,000 a pop, it’s a high price for a brief trip and an obscured view.

But before you write off all this space tourism malarkey as an over-hyped rich men’s plaything, there is an alternative. An alternative which offers a very different way of reaching the blackness of space, called the Space Perspective. And this company is certainly no billionaire’s vanity project.

Led by husband and wife team Taber MacCallum and Jayne Poynter, Space Perspective’s joint CEOs have careers full of exploration and space technology know-how. Jayne is an expert diver and has a background in ocean research, while Taber’s previous companies have developed life support systems and other space technologies which have been used by NASA, the US military and major aerospace businesses. He was also the brains behind Alan Eustace’s world record breaking free-fall flight from over 130,000 feet in 2014.

Furthermore, both Taber and Jayne were members of the crew of eight on the two year Biosphere 2 project. This used a system of linked biomes in the Arizona desert to explore the viability of closed ecological systems, which will be essential for inter-planetary space exploration missions.

All this expertise means that their future passengers could not be in better hands. Which is important, because instead of a wham bam blink-and-you-miss-it rocket trip, they plan to offer a more leisurely six hour balloon trip to the edge of space, enjoying a spectacular view all the way there and back. So instead of the extreme ‘g’ forces of a conventional rocket launch, you will coast to space at the far less than supersonic speed of 12 miles per hour – no faster than a bicycle. Their balloon will carry you aloft in a pressurised capsule; with huge windows offering the occupants of each of its nine seats a 360° panoramic view of their spectacular surroundings.

What To Expect From The Space Perspective Experience

The plan is to launch in the early hours of the morning, when it is still dark so that you and your fellow passengers can be immersed in the wonders of the night sky, before catching the sunrise as it peeps over the ‘thin blue line’ – the curved horizon of the Earth below.

As you take in the gradually changing vistas, the balloon and capsule will rise gently but rapidly through the stratosphere, perhaps enabling you to savour a glass of wine from the on-board bar. You and your fellow voyagers will also be able to share selfies and even live stream parts of the trip from your smartphones, using the free on-board Wi-Fi. And as six hours is a long time to spend on a flight with alcohol and other drinks available, it is reassuring to know that there is an on-board toilet too.

There won’t be any need for special training either, nor any tightly buckled space seats to withstand the vibration and ‘g’ forces of launch. Passengers will not even be required to don a garishly coloured and cumbersome space suit – jumpsuits will be optional, with both casual leisurewear and more formal attire also perfectly acceptable.

Once you have reached the peak of your trip, it won’t be all over in a few brief minutes either, unlike the experience of Space Perspective’s rocket powered rivals. That’s because the company’s balloon will float majestically at 100,000 feet (about 30 km) on the edge of space for around two hours for you to enjoy the spectacular ambience – with the blackness of space above and the graceful curvature of the blue orb of our planet below.

Finally, you get to experience the changing view all over again in reverse as you gradually drift down through the atmosphere to your splashdown in the sea a couple of hours later.

There is one further difference worth noting too. Taking a balloon to space means that you won’t experience a period of weightlessness. The free floating experience you see enjoyed by astronauts in orbit on the International Space Station is because the station is in orbit around the Earth, and in free-fall. Free-fall is not a good idea on a balloon trip, so you will always remain under the reassuring influence of the Earth’s gravity on your trip. Which is a good thing: floating around the cabin could result in a lot of spilt wine and other unfortunate space-sickness derived misfortunes.

As if the experience of this majestic space cruise were not enough incentive to opt for balloon rather than spaceplane or rocket, there are considerable environmental benefits too. Because there’s no methane guzzling rocket engine involved, your trip will burn far fewer polluting greenhouse gases, which contribute toward global warming. On a less environmentally friendly note, for safety reasons the polyethylene balloon envelope is required to be single use only, although it is planned to be capable of being recycled.

This is no pie-in-the-sky, distant future project either. Space Perspective’s ticket sales are going well, with more than 350 seats already reserved. Flights for 2024 are completely sold out, with bookings currently being taken for 2025.

How Much Does It Cost?

The cost? Well there’s good news and bad news. On the downside, it’s still really for the wealthy only, beyond the pockets of most… for now. Yet at $125,000 the good news is that ticket prices are set at around half that of the company’s rocket powered rivals. The company’s aim is to bring these down still further when economies of scale allow. As joint CEO Jayne Pointer explains: “Our vision isn’t just to take a few people to space. We want to take thousands, eventually millions, of people to space. In order to do that, we need to price it right.”

In fact, the pair don’t see their Space Perspective operation and the rocket outfits as competitors. Jayne describes how the two experiences are totally different, and that “…because of operational constraints, demand is going to outstrip all of the industry’s ability to fly people for a long time”, while Taber feels that the two operations will be much more co-operative than competitive. “Somebody who’s had the four-minute rocket ride would come down and say: ‘I want to do this again for hours,’ and then they would do ours. Or vice versa.”

And prices will definitely come down. At current levels, space travel remains for the wealthy only – today, billionaires only need apply. Yet within a year or two, mere millionaires will be on board. So whilst it’s true to say that the possession of considerable wealth will continue to be a necessity for those with space bound ambitions for a while yet, the path of prices is clearly on a downward curve.

Indeed, Space Perspective’s ambitious joint CEOs would surely agree with Virgin Galactic’s Branson that space travel will soon no longer be merely a millionaires’ plaything, and that we are in the midst of a process of the ‘democratisation of space’.

Just like how the rapid expansion of trans-continental air travel drove down ticket prices in the 1960s and 70s, the cost of a journey to space will soon be affordable to many. Branson believes that this will be within a generation. This will represent not only the culmination of our own ambitions. The aspirations of millions of our star gazing ancestors will also be finally fulfilled.