This astronaut could take you to the edge of space and back in a balloon

Former NASA astronaut Ron Garan is joining the private spaceflight company World View, which promises to bring people on a gentle ride to the edge of space aboard a huge balloon, as its chief pilot. 

Garan will fly the first World View mission high above the Earth, allowing passengers to see the planet below them and the black sky above. 

"I left NASA about two-and-a-half years ago, and I left for really one reason. That was to share the perspective that we have of our planet from space and to do that full-time," Garan told Mashable in an interview. "I truly believe that perspective has profound implications for how we tackle the problems we face, how we deal with each other, politics, for every aspect of human life."

This shift in perspective provided by spaceflight is known as the "overview effect," which has been described as going from seeing the planet as divided into countries to seeing it as one globe with one people.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Garan hopes that his work with World View might be able to give his passengers at least a little taste of what that overview effect is like. 

World View is planning to launch balloons tugging passengers up to 100,000 feet before the balloon starts deflating and the passengers fly back to Earth under a parachute.  

While the balloon flight won't produce a sense of weightlessness like other suborbital experiences like Virgin Galactic's space plane ride, it will be a long and gentle ride above most of Earth's atmosphere. 

It will take about two hours to get up to the balloon's initial altitude, and the craft will stay there for about two more hours before it starts its descent back to Earth, according to the company.

Tourists taking part in the experience, which has no estimated date yet, should also have an Internet connection during at least part of the five-to-six-hour journey, Garan added.

"World View is called World View for a reason," Garan added. "They believe that seeing our planet from the vantage point that they can provide will have a transformative effect, and it will potentially nudge the trajectory of our global society in a very positive way."

Garan is hesitant to give a date when the company will start flying passengers -- a ticket to ride costs $75,000 per seat -- but World View has already flown a small-scale version of their balloon system without people aboard. 

And it wants to fly more than just people up to the edge of space. The company is already sending science payloads used for Earth observation, weather modeling and forest fire prevention to high altitudes for paying customers.

"The company's proprietary balloon technology is used as a satellite orbiting the planet or hovering over a single location for many months, allowing for a myriad of research and commercial applications," World View said.

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