There’s a new player in the bustling world of “commercial space,” although the “space” part in this case is a matter of definition.

A Tucson, Ariz.-based start-up plans to use a helium balloon to lift big-ticket customers in a pressurized capsule to nearly 100,000 feet. That’s a journey to the edge of space, if not into space as traditionally defined.

The passengers would ascend for 1½ hours, then spend two hours admiring the world from on high. The capsule would then be disconnected from the balloon and begin a free-fall, but a parafoil above the capsule would become increasingly effective in the thickening air and the capsule would glide to the surface, landing on skids.

Price point: $75,000. The eight passengers on board would presumably come from the same customer pool that feeds high-end luxury vacations, such as round-the-world golf tours.

“The sky’s going to be completely black. You’ll be able to see the curvature of the Earth,” said Jane Poynter, co-founder of Paragon Space Development Corp., which has lined up investors for the new venture, World View Enterprises. World View hopes to begin the balloon flights in three years.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday that, for purposes of regulation, the World View capsule will be treated as a space vehicle because it will be built to operate in outer space. “The FAA will not address the more difficult question of whether Paragon’s proposed altitude of 30 kilometers constitutes outer space,” the FAA stated.

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The World View website promises a “truly transformative human experience.” A World View statement Tuesday said the company would offer “spectacular human flight into near-space, unlike any other suborbital spaceflight experience being offered today, allowing passengers to remain aloft for hours at a comparably affordable price.”

There’s no distinct boundary between the atmosphere and space. Rather, the atmosphere steadily thins with altitude. On tourism trips, the World View balloon would rise to a little less than 19 miles above the surface. It would go higher on scientific missions, Poynter said.

One commonly referenced boundary of space is the Karman Line, named for Hungarian-American scientist Theodore von Karman. That’s at 100 kilometers, or about 62 miles, and is the altitude above which aerodynamic flight is impossible, even in theory.

But in the minds of the people behind World View, they’re getting into space tourism.

“We’re a spacecraft,” said Paragon co-founder Taber MacCallum.


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