INTERNATIONAL: You might always have wanted to take a trip in a hot air balloon, but would you necessarily want to take one 30,000 metres up – more than twice as high as your average passenger jet? That’s the latest offering planned for the world of space tourism.

Tech company World View has announced plans to float passengers to the edge of space. Flying up to the stratosphere in a helium-filled balloon might make even the most hardened passenger a little queasy, but World View CEO Ryan Hartman says it would be extremely safe. In fact, they’re already taking deposits of $500 for those interested in the balloon capsule. Flights are set to begin in early 2024 for about $50,000 a ticket:

“Seeing the Earth as a living organism, seeing weather unfold, seeing the total devastation of a wildfire, seeing the devastation of the erosion of the Great Barrier Reef. That's not something you can see when you're standing next to something, right? It's not something you can see. I mean, you can see it on a very small scale but seeing it on a large scale is just a different perspective and you start seeing the Earth without borders, you start seeing the Earth without race, you see it as a living organism. You know, it is truly a different perspective, it is truly something you cannot experience any other way."

The only thing World View will not offer is weightlessness, but it will offer incredible views of such things as the Great Barrier Reef, the Grand Canyon, The Great Wall of China and the Amazon, not to mention of space itself.

^{PHOTO: VARIOUS OF PROMO OF BALLOON SPACE FLIGHT; INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT AND CEO OF WORLD VIEW, RYAN HARTMAN; B'ROLL OF BALLOON PREPERATION AND TEST FLIGHT; FOOTAGE OF VIRGIN GALACTIC FLIGHT}