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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TechTranscript
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)