Eager to get off this rock, but not in a rocket? Try SpaceVIP’s Stratospheric Dining Experience, where a Michelin Star restaurant floats so high you can see the curvature of the earth.
You’ll just need half a million American dollars.
At $495,000 a ticket, six paying customers can buy a seat on the space balloon and sample the upper-atmospheric cuisine. The “world’s first carbon-neutral spaceflight company” plans to launch the craft from Florida’s Space Coast in late 2025/early 2026. No training is required.
Rendering of the SpaceBalloon launch. Photo: SpaceVIP
No problem if you’re not into zero-gravity or G-forces, either. Popular Science reported the travelers will “gently lift” into space inside the pressurized cabin of Spaceship Neptune, a “SpaceBalloon” built by Space Perspective — another high-end space service company. Passengers will spend six hours on board.
Holistic cuisine
If the pleasantries listed already weren’t enough, the spread will be “Holistic Cuisine” by Rasmus Munk, Head Chef at the 2 Michelin Star restaurant Alchemist. Chef Rasmus’ dishes “will inspire thought and discussion” over how humanity can better protect the planet. And each traveler gets a spacesuit — or dinner outfit — built by French fashion house Ogier with “cutting-edge fabric technology developed specifically for this mission.”
Image: SpaceVIP
Roman Chiporukha, founder of SpaceVIP, has planted the flag of inclusion in the expedition’s underpinnings.
“The purpose of this expedition is to harness the transformative power of space travel to elevate human consciousness and to proliferate universal space literacy,” Chiporukha told Newsweek. “This is why all proceeds will be directed to the Space Prize Foundation,” he noted — a group that promotes aerospace careers for women in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM).
As diners ascend to their 30,480-meter cruising altitude — about three times the altitude of a typical commercial jet — they’ll of course enjoy the advantage of livestreaming their space tourism experience to earthbound loved ones and friends via WiFi.
Image: SpaceVIP
Which brings me to a request for submissions to all you Earthlings out there in the ExWeb-o-sphere: Know anyone who’s got $500K? I say we livestream it and figure out how to save the Blue Planet — once and for all.
