Japanese Company Will Offer Travel To The Stratosphere By Helium Basin

CEO of tourism company Iwaya Giken, Keisuke Iwaya. (photo: screenshot of youtube nhk)

JAKARTA - Japan's space tourism firm, Iwaya Giken, has just announced that it will start offering a helium balloon journey to the stratosphere by the end of this year. Passengers are promised a curved view of the earth from an altitude of 15 miles (25 km).

Namun iwsata ini memiliki harga yang cukup mahal, yaitu insider148,000 (sekitar Rp2,9 miliar) perketnya. CEO perusahaan tersebut, Keisuke Iwaya, berharap bahwa komilisasi perjalanan space akan membantu menurunkan biaya di masa depan sehingga menjadi terjangkau bagi lebih banyak orang.

The cruise ship consists of an airproof plastic cabin with a width of about 4.9 feet (1.5 m) attached to a 144-foot (44 m)-wide helium balloon. The ship can accommodate two passengers and offers a view of the Earth or space panoramic through windows at the front and back of the drum-shaped cabin.

The journey starts from the balloon port in Hokkaido, Japan, before boarding for two hours into the stratosphere - the second layer of the atmosphere. The ship will be at its maximum altitude for an hour before returning to Earth in two hours of descent.

Although passengers will not be in space, they will be at a higher altitude than a jet and have unobstructed views from space. Unlike hot air rockets or balloons, the Iwaya Giken ship will be lifted by reusable helium.

According to Iwaya, passengers do not need to be billionaires, undergo intensive training, or have the language skills needed for flights on other spacecraft. The company has been working on its balloons for more than a decade, which it claims to be "safe, economical, and soft for humans".

The Daily Mail reported that Iwaya Giken plans to cooperate with Japan's travel agent, JTB Corp., on its first commercial trip, which is scheduled to take place later this year.

Meanwhile, the cost for the first flight was around 24 million yen (Rp 2.7 billion), but Iwaya hopes to lower the price to several million yen (tens of thousands of dollars) as part of his plan to "democratize space".

Registration for the space balloon journey has been open since yesterday and will continue until the end of August. The first five selected passengers will be announced in October, and the flight schedule will last for a week, depending on the weather.

Iwaya Giken is not the only company planning to offer the experience of space views.

To date, several companies that have offered space tourism in hot air balloons are as follows:

World View Enterprises - The company is based in the United States and offers a tour of the stratosphere using hot air balloons. This tour lasted for several hours at a price of around US$75,000 (around Rp1,058,250,000.

Zero2Infinity - The company is based in Spain and offers a space tour using hot air balloons. The tour lasted for several hours at a price of around 110,000 euros (around Rp1,859,210,000) per person.

Space Perspective - The company is also based in the United States and offers a space tour using hot air balloons. This tour lasted for several hours at a price of around US$125,000 (around Rp1,762,500,000) per person.

Raven Aerostar - The company is based in the United States and offers a tour of the stratosphere using air balloons. This tour focuses more on research and technology development needs, but they also offer a varied price tourism experience.