Japan startup unveils space viewing tour on balloon flight
The IndependentFor free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy A Japanese startup company announced plans Tuesday to launch a commercial space viewing balloon flight that it hopes will bring down to earth an otherwise astronomically expensive experience. SpaceX launched three rich businessmen and their astronaut escort to the International Space Station in April for $55 million each — the company's first private charter flight to the orbiting lab after two years of carrying astronauts there for NASA. An airtight, two-seater cabin that can carry a pilot and a passenger would take off from a balloon port in Hokkaido, rise for two hours to as high as 25 kilometers — part of the stratosphere and the gateway to space, whose definition varies but considered to start around 100 kilometers above the Earth — and stay there for one hour before a one-hour descent. The drum-shaped plastic cabin is 1.5 meters in diameter and has several large windows to allow passengers to see the space above or the blue Earth below, the company said.
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Japanese startup unveils balloon flight space viewing tours
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