World View Set For Near Space Launches By 2017

If you've got a spare $75,000, the quickest way to get into space may be to send a check to World View, which says it's on track to launch paying customers into near space sometime in 2017. The company's CEO, Jane Poynter, told an audience at the Aircraft Electronics Association convention in Dallas that development and scale flight of the vehicle's various systems are proceeding apace.

While two other companies, Virgin Galactic and Xcor, propose to launch space tourists aboard rockets, World View plans to loft them gently into space in a giant helium balloon to altitudes above 100,000 feet, for a total flight lasting a couple of hours. The vehicle, capable of carrying six passengers and two crew, will descend to earth under a giant, steerable ram-air parachute. Theoretically, rather than plopping down in the desert, the capsule and parachute can be navigated to land on a runway.

During her brief talk at AEA, Poynter reviewed the record skydive of Alan Eustace, a Google exec who shattered the drogue fall record established by Joe Kittinger in 1960 and the overall exit altitude record established by Felix Baumgartner in 2012. World View and its partner company, Paragon Space Development, devised the suit and life support system that Eustace used for his record flight last October. Poynter showed the AEA crowd some interesting film and photos, including the innovative deployment system Paragon designed to keep the drogue from fouling when released.

In this AVweb podcast, Poynter said the company has been testing high-altitude deployment of its large parafoil and will begin scale capsule tests sometime this year, with a planned first launch from somewhere in the southwest in 2017. Poynter also said with helium becoming scarce, unmanned payloads are beginning to use hydrogen and that safety systems may eventually make that possible with manned flights, too.