Tourists will be able to take a near-space flight to the Great Barrier Reef after Victoria invested in U.S. satellite imagery and space tourism company under the innovation fund Breakthrough Victoria—but not everyone can see the benefit.
The $37 million (US$25 million) investment—the biggest expenditure to date for the fund—into Arizona-based company World View was announced on May 15 by Victorian Minister for Economic Growth Tim Pallas.
“World View’s cutting-edge technology and future jobs, especially in highly skilled areas of engineering, data science and material science, will create fantastic opportunities for Victoria and Australia,” he said.
On its website, the company promotes itself as “founded with the goal of increasing access to and the utilization of the stratosphere for scientific, commercial, economic, and military purposes.”
World View CEO Ryan Hartman said in a release from Breakthrough Victoria that they chose to set up shop in Melbourne as it had all the attributes the company was looking for.
“Australia, especially Victoria, offers access to incredibly skilled talent, cutting-edge technology, promising partnerships, smart capital and significant geographic leverage to support our Indo-Pacific remote sensing and future space tourism operations. We are eager to get to work in Victoria,” he said.World View’s stratospheric balloons provide on-demand, high-resolution sensing, weather monitoring, and communication services.
Their innovation is something Breakthrough Victoria CEO, Grant Dooley thinks will evolve symbiotically.
Flights To The Edge Of Space
A promotional video on their website shows how passengers in a balloon-assisted capsule climb 100,000 feet into the air.The journey takes five to eight hours and starts with a before-dawn liftoff before reaching an orbit point in the stratosphere on the edge of space, where the capsule stays for two to four hours before a gentle 90-minute descent via pilot-steered parafoil.
World View, does not yet have governmental approval to conduct flights, however, bookings for the $75,000 flights are open for their future flights over the Great Barrier Reef.
The company has plans to offer a similarly spectacular trip hovering over the Grand Canyon, with operations expected to start in 2026.
Who are Worldview?
World View Enterprises Inc. is a pioneering company in the field of high-altitude stratospheric ballooning technology.Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, they has been at the forefront of developing innovative solutions for a variety of applications, including remote sensing, communications, and research.
One of its key technologies is the “Stratollite,” a high-altitude balloon system capable of long-duration flights in the stratosphere above commercial air traffic and weather. It monitors weather patterns and provides internet connectivity to remote areas.
In 2017, the company partnered with Raven Aerostar, a designer and manufacturer of high-altitude balloons, to further develop the technology.
World View has also collaborated with NASA on several projects, including the development of a system for monitoring hurricanes from the stratosphere.
