Sir Richard Branson is set to fly on the world’s first commercial stratospheric balloon and you can too but it will cost you – £95,000 to be precise.
He will be one of three pilots who will float above the Earth’s atmosphere on Space Perspective’s maiden voyage in 2025.
Future flights will accommodate up to eight passengers and cost £95,000 each.
It will fly 20 miles high and use renewable hydrogen – something never achieved before in a commercial balloon flight.
Sir Richard said: ‘I couldn’t be more excited. In my lifetime I’ve had some magnificent balloon adventures and I certainly wasn’t going to stand back and watch this balloon be piloted without me on it.
‘It’s going to be the most extraordinary of experiences. Just drifting up at 10 miles an hour to heights that no commercial balloon has ever done before with spectacular views.’
For those of you lucky enough to grab tickets, you’ll be able to see the Earth’s curvature and be treated to a bar, bathroom and massive windows.
A practice flight took place in September and while no specific date has been confirmed for the first flight yet it will be some time in 2025.
Taber MacCallum is one of the other pilots and hopes the company alongside Virgin Galactic can make space travel more accessible.
He said: ‘We definitely see ourselves as a feeder to Virgin Galactic and I think we’re going to see a lot of people who do the balloon experience moving on… I think we’re at the beginning of an amazing transformation in accessibility.
‘I think changing humanity’s perspective of the planet and seeing the Earth and the dark sky in that context is incredibly important.
‘Imagine if every school district in America or in the world had somebody who’d been on this kind of an experience and can relay that to people.
‘I think it’s incredibly important that perspective is accessible to a wide range of people, and Virgin is absolutely doing that with Galactic and we are a big part of that as well.’
When asked about the expensive tickets, he said: ‘We’re looking at ways to build larger capsules that allow us to bring the price down. At this point, though, the demand is so high – we have deposits for more than 1,800 tickets.
‘I think that across the board, with a lot of these experienced companies, we see the demand is really, really high, and the market is such that I don’t think anyone’s going to need to bring down ticket prices for a while.’
Sir Richard added: ‘Virgin Galactic have had 12 very, very successful flights. They are now focused on building the first two spaceships which will conduct 125 flights per year which is 750 new astronauts per year.
‘They say that at the end of 2026, they should start rolling these out, and in time, I think that will bring down the price of space travel.
‘Obviously in the early days of anything like space travel or this ballooning project there’s a lot of expenditure goes into the initial investments but, and you got to get that money back from people who can afford it. But in time, I hope that more and more people will be able to afford to go to space.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
MORE : Large supermoon lights up UK skies – will we see it again tonight?
MORE : 7 commonly believed ‘facts’ that aren’t actually true
MORE : Solving this space problem could land you £2,300,000
Get your need-to-know
latest news, feel-good stories, analysis and more
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
