Understanding The Experience Of Flying To The Edge Of Space On A 'Spaceship Neptune' Balloon Ride

Space.com

Learn what to expect on your ride to the edge of space aboard Space Perspective's Spaceship Neptune capsule. CEO Jane Poynter explains what the high-altitude balloon ride is like.   Credit: Space.com | Space Perspective | produced & edited by Steve Spaleta and Josh Dinner

Transcript

00:00 (gentle music)

00:02 We're gonna be taking unprecedented numbers

00:04 of people to space.

00:06 If you can get on a commercial airplane,

00:08 you can get on spaceship Neptune.

00:11 That actually opens up the market enormously

00:15 to people who otherwise don't feel comfortable

00:18 going on a rocket or just simply can't go on a rocket

00:20 but still want that extraordinary experience

00:23 of seeing our Earth from space.

00:25 We are about to enter a rigorous set of test flights.

00:30 And so you see so many stations here

00:32 because it's engineers that are sitting in a lot of these

00:35 because they're monitoring their own systems

00:38 during the flights.

00:39 We launch from a ship and we splash in the ocean.

00:44 So imagine this, you get up early in the morning,

00:47 maybe you've slept overnight on the ship.

00:49 You get up, it's dark out,

00:51 you step into this beautifully appointed,

00:53 very comfortable capsule, you're handed your beverage

00:55 of choice as you sit down and strap yourself in

00:57 for about the first 15 minutes of flight.

01:00 So when the spaceship is released from the deck,

01:04 there's a 600 foot tall balloon standing up above you.

01:08 The entire vehicle very gently lifts off the deck.

01:12 It's going to space at 12 miles an hour.

01:15 This is literally the opposite of rocket flight.

01:19 It's slow.

01:19 It's very slow.

01:20 So it takes you two hours to get up there,

01:21 but that's also part of the beauty of this

01:24 is that you can take it all in

01:26 and you're not having to withstand all that,

01:28 which some people love, but not everybody.

01:31 So it takes you a couple of hours to get up there.

01:33 Then you'll start to see the sunrise over the horizon,

01:38 the curved horizon of our planet.

01:40 And then you'll see the thin blue line of our atmosphere.

01:42 I think it's that stark blackness of space

01:44 and the sun in the black sky.

01:47 I mean, it's just going to be mind blowing for people.

01:48 And if you've talked to astronauts,

01:50 as I'm sure you have about what's often called

01:52 the overview effect,

01:54 it is transformational for a lot of people.

01:56 So we're giving people a lot of time

01:58 to be up there a couple of hours

02:00 so they can really absorb this experience,

02:03 celebrate with a drink from our bar,

02:06 whatever beverage you would like to have.

02:08 Of course, there will also be food along the way.

02:10 And we have a loo and wifi.

02:12 So you can be telling everybody back home

02:14 what's going on during your flight.

02:16 And then there'll be a two hour journey back down,

02:18 splash down in the ocean, super safe way to do this.

02:21 So you go up under the balloon and down under the balloon,

02:24 no transfer to another kind of flight vehicle,

02:27 which makes it a seamless experience and super safe.

02:30 The vehicle, another ship is right there,

02:33 picks the capsule up out of the water, puts it on the deck.

02:36 Everybody disembarks within about 15 minutes of splash.

02:40 We're planning to have crewed flights this year.

02:42 The current plan is that we do roughly 10 flights uncrewed.

02:46 And then we have series of flights that are crewed

02:49 and then we get into commercial operations

02:51 around the end of 24, early 25.

02:54 [upbeat music]

02:56 (upbeat music)

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