Tucson company: Capsule will take travelers to space
A Tucson company that is developing a high-altitude balloon capsule for space travel could help solidify Arizona as a destination for adventure tourism.
World View Enterprises says its capsule will take travelers more than 100,000 feet above Earth for a view that would cost $75,000. The operation would join a growing roster of adventure-tourism-related operations in the state, including the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving and Desert Splash Adventures, which offers aerial tours in Arizona. The Grand Canyon and houseboating on Lake Powell offer less expensive opportunities for adventure.
"The luxury-experience market is growing 50 percent faster than the sale of luxury goods," said Jane Poynter, who heads World View Enterprises. "Experiences such as world cruises and treks through remote parts of the world are on the rise and carry similar price points to our spectacular, edge-of-space human flight experience."
World View, like many other high-end adventure-tourism ventures, aims to appeal to the traveler willing to pay thousands of dollars for an extreme experience of a lifetime, Poynter said.
Sherry Henry, director of the Arizona Office of Tourism, said that if World View takes off it will bolster the state, and Tucson in particular, as a destination.
"Tucson is already a solid destination for leisure travel because of the amenities. It is a really beautiful geographical location with the Saguaro National Monument, beautiful resorts, hiking and biking and wineries nearby," Henry said. "We're just as anxious for this to happen as they are."
In 2013, the Arizona Office of Tourism reported that 39 million domestic and international visitors came to Arizona, generating $19.8 billion in economic spending.
Space company grows
World View hopes to take its first travelers to space at the end of 2016. The five-hour trip, which will include a meal and an open bar, will give tourists a chance to see the outer edge of Earth.
"It's really truly to allow people to have that experience that until now only astronauts have had, which is seeing the earth in space. It's really seeing for the very first time the planet as globe hanging in space," said Poytner, who was also involved in the Biosphere II project in Tucson. Poynter was one of eight people who agreed to live in Biosphere II, a sealed artificial world, for two years in the 1990s for research purposes. Afterward, she and Biosphere II colleague Taber MacCallum, along with several aerospace engineers, established Paragon Space Development Corp., which develops products and systems for astronauts and environment explorers.
Poynter's latest venture, World View, is still in a testing phase. The company plans to build a manufacturing facility in Tucson to build the balloon capsule, which will carry six passengers and two crew members, she said.
The company has been conducting test flights without passengers over the past year and a half, and Poynter hopes the company can start testing with people at the end of 2015. The company is currently doing test flights in Roswell, N.M., but test launches could begin soon in Page or Tucson, Poynter said.
"We probably are going to need a number of sites to launch all year round, but we're definitely looking to do this near home first," she said.
Poynter did not disclose the number of tickets World View has sold, but she said the company has received interest from all over the world.
Backing the business is a legislative bill that was passed this year that would allow people to waive the right to sue during a space flight. The provision allows World View to obtain the insurance necessary to conduct flights in the state.
Space travel evolves
World View joins a commercial space industry for private citizens that is starting to take off. Virgin Galactic in California hopes to take people to space in its jetlike spaceship for $250,000 in the near future.
But leading the way in commercial space tourism is Virginia-based Space Adventures, which started in 1998 and has flown seven private explorers into space. Explorers pay an estimated $50 million, which includes equipment and training for several months before going on a 10-day-plus trip on the International Space Station.
As technology advances, spaceflights could be more than a luxury adventure and may evolve into the next frontier for travel, spectators say.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which is responsible for regulating and licensing U.S. private companies and individuals in commercial space transportation, has approved more than 220 space launches.
World View has yet to submit an application to be licensed and insured. To be granted an FAA license, a company must meet safety and environmental standards and ensure that the operation does not compromise national security interests. Commercial space travel license applicants have 180 days to be approved or denied.
"I do believe that this is going to be a really magical and transformational experience for people," Poynter said.
"It's really nice to see Arizona really becoming a space for commercial space flight," she said.
Richard Garriott de Cayeux, who lives in New York, couldn't agree more.
The first second-generation astronaut and explorer flew with Space Adventures when he was 47 years old in 2008. The son of a former NASA astronaut spent 12 days on the ISS.
"My main objective for this mission, however, was to encourage commercial participation in spaceflight. I partnered with multiple companies doing work in science, education and even art and conducted research for them in zero gravity," Garriott de Cayeux said. "Space changed my perception of the world in ways I didn't expect. As you're orbiting the globe, you notice the size of cities and the distance between them and it strikes you how small the world really is."
When asked if he'd do it again, he said, "I would gladly seize the opportunity to travel to space again."
Reporter can be reached at angelique.soenarie@arizonarepublic.com.