For Sale: Balloon Rides to Near-Space for $75,000 a Seat | Hacker News Reader

For Sale: Balloon Rides to Near-Space for $75,000 a Seat

space.com

40 pointssasvari27 comments

2015 seems ambitious. Needless to say the ride up is safe, but mind you there is a glider structure carrying 6 passengers, in other words an "untested aircraft". Aircraft development takes time and lots of $$$ in testing. Building this and getting the proper approval is no easy feat. Not only that there is only one agency in the world that also has built a massive glider to decent from the space and/or edge of space...

Long story short, 75K x 6 makes 450k a pop, say it goes up monthly in its inception, that makes ~ $5.5M. Felix Baumgartners jump reportedly cost around $20-30M. Granted it was higher, and the design needed a space suit and a capsule along with the a massive team. Regardless, this will require a capsule and a solid team, not to mention a more complex capsule design that can soar down and land in 1 piece.

I don't want to poop on the cake but 1 accident also everyone gets to watch Jimi Hendrix play in the garden of eden till eternity, which also spells the end of the company and idea. So 2015 extremely ambitious, Highly doubtful unless they have some some nutty billionaire willing to throw in 50M to see what happens.

I think I'd prefer MiG-29 ride: http://www.skyandspacetravel.com/included_sky.html

Not as high, but much cheaper, sky is already pretty black and you get a chance to control the damn thing.

previously they were flying mig-25 & 31 and these planes can go higher, especially mig-25, yet they are older and seems to be more harder(expensive) to maintain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izIClWYKK1o

I wonder what is the marginal cost of each launch here. I might be missing something, but it looks like something that could cost much much less, if there will be enough demand to drive competition.

But you don't get to jump out? Disappointing.

You can jump out. Once.

Not if you have breathing apparatus and a parachute :) See http://halojumper.com/ for example

Well if you’re rich and looking for a unique way to propose to your better half this could be it.

Nothing is more romantic than an oxygen mask and a space suit.

Near space? 30 kilometers is not even a 3rd of the way to the 100km boundary of space.

Yes, but that boundary is rather arbitrary. Humans require a pressure suit above the Armstrong Limit at around 19,000 metres, so by a more meaningful definition of space as "a place where you need a space suit", this trip qualifies.

I suspect Virgin Galactic will do better, even at over double this cost. Virgin is going to give the feel of a rocket launch, like everyone has been watching on TV since they were kids. Also, weightlessness.

Thinking about space debris: What happens to the balloon afterwards? Will it remain in orbit or sink down to earth? Could the balloons cause problems for other aircrafts later on?

30km is not space (official boundary is at 100km). Also the balloon is not in orbit, so even if they it could go much much higher, the debris would fall straight down. Space debris come from spacecraft that are in orbit, and therefore remain in orbit for quite some time. That´s why they are dangerous.

I am so tired of people suggesting that balloons "go to space".

Yes, Felix Baumgartner set a new record and his jump was a great accomplishment. But it was not a "space jump".

Ok, so they're coming down again. Isn't this a problem as well? Where will they land, a desert, the ocean, a city?

A balloon needs air to float. When there's air, there's friction.

Now if we could somehow play disc golf up there...

How does the balloon rise? I don't see any heaters to use plain air. It then probably wastes helium, supply of which is limited:

Still I don't have the doubt that the flights can be profitable for the organizer.

I wonder if it would be possible to use a compressor with a balloon to pump air back out of the balloon into a cylinder... this would allow you to lose altitude without sacrificing (much) Helium.

>The federal government, which sets helium prices

What. Why?

Helium is considered a strategic resource.

Going as far back as the 1930s, when it was restricted because of its scarcity and use in naval airships. For example, the United States refused to sell helium to Nazi Germany -- which is why the airship Hindenburg was filled with hydrogen.

Well, turns out there is Federal Helium reserve:

http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/prog/energy/helium/federal_heliu...

I feel silly for asking, but will I feel any form of zero gravity at this point?

No. In the big picture you're barely leaving the surface. 30km off a spheroid of radius ~6000km means gravity is essentially what it is at the surface.

near = 1/11th the altitude of the ISS.

And the ISS is only ~1/10,000,000th the altitude or Neptune - neither of these things define where "space" begins or ends.

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