World View Enterprises, Inc. is a new venture (date: Oct. 2013) headed by veteran space entrepreneurs plans to send tourists on a balloon up to an altitude of 19 miles, to give them the kind of spacey view that Felix Baumgartner saw last year — at a price of about $75,000 a ticket.
Arizona-based World View Enterprises said it would offer 30-kilometer-high balloon rides starting no earlier than 2016. It plans to start selling tickets sometime in the next few months, even as it continues development of its balloon and pressurized gondola in Tucson.
The company unveiled its plans on Tuesday 22 Oct. 2013, after the Federal Aviation Administration determined that the venture would follow the rules that govern commercial spaceflight rather than the more stringent rules for atmospheric balloon trips. World View says has completed some component testing for the balloon system and will begin subscale testing early next year.
The World View balloon wouldn't get anywhere near the internationally accepted 100-kilometer (62-mile) boundary of outer space, and riders wouldn't feel any zero-gravity sensation. But the experience would give them the kind of black-sky view associated with high-altitude balloon flights — like the ones that have put cameras, action figures and a Hello Kitty doll into the stratosphere.
