A luxury space tourism company named SpaceVIP is currently accepting bookings for its Stratospheric Dining Experience. For $495,000, six people will enjoy a restaurant-catered trip into suborbit, without rockets or zero gravity. It is set to launch from Florida’s Space Coast in 2025, and travelers will ascend into the sky aboard the pressurized cabin of Spaceship Neptune, a supposedly carbon neutral 'SpaceBalloon' designed by another elite getaway startup known as Space Perspective. During the six-hour journey, travelers will be treated to a meal by Rasmus Munk, the Head Chef at Alchemist, a 2 Michelin Star “Holistic Cuisine” restaurant.
“Holistic Cuisine” is described as a meal that tells a deliberate story and encourages reflection and discussion on humanity's role in protecting our planet, challenging the diner to reconsider our relationship with Earth and its inhabitants. Diners can contemplate this while watching the sunrise over Earth’s curvature from approximately 100,000-feet above sea level. Roman Chiporukha, the founder of SpaceVIP, stated, “Embarking on this unprecedented culinary journey to the cosmos marks a crucial moment in human history. This first voyage is just the beginning of SpaceVIP's mission to use space travel to elevate human consciousness and influence our collective evolution.”A visual representation of the SpaceBalloon’s interior has been created. Credit: SpaceVIP
Space Perspective representatives also believe that this trip will elicit what’s known as the “
” among their “Explorers,” referring to the sense of wonder many astronauts have experienced when viewing Earth from space. If not, at least their tickets will reportedly contribute to theSpace Prize Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing women within the space industry. However, astronauts usually experience the Overview Effect after years of training. Attendees of the Stratospheric Dining Experience can skip all that by paying 12 times theannual salary of a first-year public school teacher
in the US. For a more general overview effect, one ticket costs about 2,640% more than the global average yearly wage. Test flights will begin this year before the 2025 launch window, when SpaceVIP’s Explorers “will be making history by enjoying the meal of a lifetime above 99% of Earth’s atmosphere.” Despite the numerous mentions of “space” in the promotional materials, the meal won’t technically be in outer space. At its highest point, SpaceVIP and Space Perspective’s “SpaceBalloon” will be about 43 miles below the
. For an actual, albeit brief, journey to space,
spots reportedly cost about $250,000 each. Kármán line‘Space is for everybody.’ Blue Origin spots are reportedly going for about $250,000 a seat.
