Space tourism has never been so close to existence.
Frequent travelers who have already traveled the world can now dream of going on a cruise in the stratosphere.
Twenty years after American businessman Dennis Tito, who paid $ 20 million to spend a week aboard the International Space Station (ISS), only seven tourists have had the privilege of taking a trip to space. .
But while the ISS has just welcomed four new astronauts taken into orbit by the Dragon capsule of the company SpaceX, a Frenchman is refining a
"general public" project
: a balloon, capable of carrying four to six people 25 km from the Earth, or the altitude from which we see the curvature of the globe, the darkness of space and the stars.
This inventor who draws his inspiration from the sources of aeronautics is called Vincent Farret d'Astiès, engineer and balloon pilot.
“We are more contemplative than Virgin Galactic's suborbital shuttle which subjects its passengers to quite a few jets and accelerations.
Our take-off balloon is very soft, between an airliner and a hot air balloon.
And our 5 meter diameter basket is like a living room ”
, he says.
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Inspired by Jules Verne before Stanley Kubrick, Vincent Farret d'Astiès founded in 2016 his company called Zephalto, a contraction of Zéphyr - already very involved in aeronautical projects - and Latin exalto ("to raise"), blowing the word that follows. Zef,
"the wind"
.
His business took off from Pouget, in Hérault, where he assembled his first balloons under the vaults of the 18th century family house.
Sail to the stars
Two years later, he made a month-long flight in the sky, 8,000 kilometers above the ground, in a suspended pod made of composite material - the same as the A350 - powered by solar energy.
“We can go up and down.
This technology allows us to adapt as much as we want, he rejoiced at the time.
So far, everyone who has been in the stratosphere in a balloon has parachuted or dropped like Felix Baumgartner.
But with our balloon, the ascent takes two hours, the descent also takes two hours and between the two, we can stay twenty-four hours if we want to marvel at the vision from the space of the Earth thanks to an altitude regulator, which stabilizes the 70-meter high balloon ”
, continues the engineer.
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“I have always dreamed of sailing for the stars. Then I wanted to integrate it into the aerial realities. No longer having to leave Lapland or the Canadian Far North where there is no plane. A large field is enough to make a starting point, ”underlines and former air traffic controller at Montpellier airport. “But we are not the only ones: it has been fifty years since the Cnes (National Center for Space Studies) has been sending balloons into the stratosphere. The brakes are commercial. ”
Since this summer, Vincent Farret d'Astiès has successfully concluded the test flights he performs with Benoît Pelard, President of the French Aerostation Federation.
His company is in the fundraising phase.
The first industrial applications are scheduled for 2021. The first travelers, who will have to pay
"several tens of thousands of euros"
to live this exceptional experience, are expected from 2024.
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