World View Enterprises’ plan to send tourists from Spaceport Tucson into the stratosphere in a balloon-borne capsule won a $15 million vote of support today from Arizona’s Pima County.
In a 4-1 vote, the county Board of Supervisors approved a plan to build the spaceport for World View’s use by the end of the year. World View is working on a pressurized Voyager capsule that would rise to 100,000 feet beneath a high-altitude balloon and give passengers a leisurely space-like view – all for the price of $75,000 a person.
World View CEO Jane Poynter told GeekWire that today’s vote of support signals that Arizona has joined the likes of Florida, California, New Mexico and Texas on the commercial space frontier. “We’re really seeing an inflection point in this whole space tech area,” she said.
