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
Credit: Space.com | Space Perspective | produced & edited by Steve Spaleta and Josh Dinner
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00:00We're going to be taking unprecedented numbers of people to space.
00:06If you can get on a commercial airplane, you can get on spaceship Neptune.
00:11That actually opens up the market enormously to people who otherwise don't feel comfortable
00:18going on a rocket or just simply can't go on a rocket but still want that extraordinary
00:22experience of seeing our Earth from space.
00:25We are about to enter a rigorous set of test flights and so you see so many stations here
00:32because it's engineers that are sitting in a lot of these because they're monitoring
00:37their own systems during the flights.
00:39We launch from a ship and we splash in the ocean.
00:44So imagine this, you get up early in the morning, maybe you've slept overnight on the ship,
00:49you get up, it's dark out, you step into this beautifully appointed, very comfortable capsule,
00:54you're handed your beverage of choice as you sit down and strap yourself in for about
00:58the first 15 minutes of flight.
01:00So when the spaceship is released from the deck, there's a 600 foot tall balloon standing
01:07up above you, the entire vehicle very gently lifts off the deck.
01:12It's going to space at 12 miles an hour.
01:15This is literally the opposite of rocket flight.
01:19It's very slow.
01:20It takes you two hours to get up there but that's also part of the beauty of this is
01:24that you can take it all in and you're not having to withstand all that, which some people
01:29love but not everybody.
01:31So it takes you a couple of hours to get up there and then you'll start to see the sun
01:35rise over the horizon, the curved horizon of our planet and then you'll see the thin
01:41blue line of our atmosphere and it's that stark blackness of space and the sun in the
01:46black sky.
01:47It's just going to be mind-blowing for people and if you've talked to astronauts as I'm
01:50sure you have about what's often called the overview effect, it is transformational for
01:55a lot of people.
01:56So we're giving people a lot of time to be up there, a couple of hours, so they can really
02:01absorb this experience, celebrate with a drink from our bar, whatever beverage you would
02:07like to have.
02:08Of course there will also be food along the way and we have a loo and Wi-Fi so you can
02:13be telling everybody back home what's going on during your flight.
02:16And then there'll be a two-hour journey back down, splash down in the ocean, super safe
02:20way to do this.
02:21So you go up under the balloon and down under the balloon, no transfer to another kind of
02:26flight vehicle which makes it a seamless experience and super safe.
02:30The vehicle, another ship is right there, picks the capsule up out of the water, puts
02:35it on the deck, everybody disembarks within about 15 minutes of splash.
02:40We're planning to have crewed flights this year.
02:42The current plan is that we do roughly 10 flights uncrewed and then we have a series
02:47of flights that are crewed and then we get into commercial operations around the end
02:52of 24, early 25.