Company Plans to Use a Balloon to Send Customers 18 Miles Up

While companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are busy developing reusable rocket technology, one Arizona company is looking into a much simpler design to base its commercial space travel on: balloons.

World View Enterprises is a subsidiary of Paragon Space Development Corp., which produces equipment for a range of NASA projects. Tuesday the company announced plans to send customers more than 18 miles into space using a high-altitude balloon.

Though not high enough to experience weightlessness, passengers will be able to view the Earth's curvature, as well as "the blackness of space, the brilliance of stars and the thin veil of atmosphere enveloping our planet -- scenes previously witnessed exclusively by astronauts -- for $75,000," the company's announcement reads.

This is in contrast to the $250,000 Virgin Galactic charges for flights scheduled to begin in coming years.

"Seeing the Earth hanging in the ink-black void of space will help people realize our connection to our home planet and to the universe around us, and will surely offer a transformative experience to our customers," said Jane Poynter, CEO of World View. "It is also our goal to open up a whole new realm for exercising human curiosity, scientific research and education."

According to Poynter, the experience will be an especially durable one.

"It really is very gentle," she told Discovery News. "You can be up at altitude for hours, for days for research if you need to be."

The company said it will begin subscale testing soon in order to demonstrate "the flight characteristics of the overall integrated system."

"We look forward to pioneering this new, accessible and affordable spaceflight regime," Poynter said, "and to sharing the breathtaking, once-in-a-lifetime experience with people from around the globe."