Who Wants To Go Up, Up And Away In Hydrogen Balloon To Space?

While Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN founder Jeff Bezos is planning to fly to the edge of outer space and Tesla Inc. TSLA "technoking" Elon Musk keeps talking about sending people to Mars, another galaxy-focused company is inviting intrepid travelers to channel their inner Neil Armstrong in a fancy hot air balloon.

It's The Only Way To Fly: According to a New York Post article, the privately-owned Florida-based Space Perspective is offering a “new era in luxury travel experiences” via Spaceship Neptune, a hydrogen-supported 650-foot-tall balloon that will carry a passenger capsule above the Earth’s atmosphere.

For its inaugural flight, Spaceship Neptune is scheduled to take roughly two hours to reach its maximum altitude of about 100,000 feet, or 18 miles above the planet. The craft’s passenger capsule can hold eight passengers, and Space Perspective is promising panoramic windows and reclining seats along with a full-service bar for maximum viewing comfort.

Related Link: Opinion: Is Dogecoin-To-The-Moon Another Elon Musk Pipe Dream?

Oh, The Humanity: Space Perspective is planning its first flight in 2024 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The cost for the trip is $125,000.

History buffs may recall the last hydrogen-fueled passenger flight involved the zeppelin Hindenburg in 1937, which did not quite end the way it was planned. However, the company claimed it was using hydrogen because helium was in short supply, and it insisted there was no reason to fear this type of fuel.

“Hydrogen is the gas of choice of balloonists around the world,” the company said in a statement. “There have been no recorded gas balloon flight failures caused by hydrogen going all the way back to the earliest flights in the 1700s.”

And for those lacking $125,000 and the nerve to float up above the Earth, at least a few minutes of happy retro distraction can be provided by the 5th Dimension.