Posts: 51901 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 06-18-2020 10:00 AM
Please use this topic to discuss Space Perspective and its Spaceship Neptune, a high-performance balloon and pressurized capsule.
thisismills Member
Posts: 525 From: Michigan Registered: Mar 2012
posted 06-18-2020 07:05 PM
Cost not set, reported to be targeted around $125,000 per seat at first.
SkyMan1958 Member
Posts: 1349 From: CA. Registered: Jan 2011
posted 06-18-2020 08:23 PM
I wish Space Perspective well.
Whatever happened to World View? I just looked at their webpage and they are listing unmanned balloon flights. From what I remember, for about 5 years they were planning on the same sort of high-altitude flights that Space Perspective is.
Needless to say, while 100,000 feet is above the vast majority of the atmosphere, it is nowhere near 328,000 feet for 100 km high. Of course, 6 hours is a lot better than the up and down hop of the New Shepard, or even the 2 hour (predominantly WhiteKnightTwo) flight of Virgin Galactic.
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 51901 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 06-18-2020 09:06 PM
World View found its market in the Stratolite, flying payloads instead of people. So Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum, who helped start World View, created Space Perspective to refocus on flying people.
The Space Perspective Neptune differs from the once-proposed World View Voyager in some key ways, including no longer replying on a steerable parasail to return to Earth. Instead of dropping away at altitude, the balloon is gradually deflated and Neptune slowly descends to a splashdown in the ocean. If it works, then it will be a smoother round trip.
Robert Pearlman Editor
Posts: 51901 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
posted 02-20-2024 10:05 PM
From Space Perspective:
Introducing our first completed test capsule, Spaceship Neptune — Excelsior. Its spherical capsule is 16 feet (4.9 meters) in diameter, providing a pressurized volume of more than 2,000 cubic feet (60 cubic meters) – roughly two times the volume of Virgin Galactic’s Spaceship Two and Blue Origin’s New Shepard, and about four times that of SpaceX's Crew Dragon.
The result of years of planning, design, development and manufacturing by our unparalleled team, and a testament to the relentless pursuit of innovation and collaboration that exists within the walls of our company, we humbly celebrate this milestone as we begin eyeing our test flights window. Uncrewed test flights pave the way for human test flights later this year. Data gathered during our upcoming flights will inform the build of a human-rated Spaceship Neptune capsule.
posted 06-18-2020 10:00 AM
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