Would You Spend $50,000 to Go to Space for 12 Hours?

If you ever somehow find yourself with an extra $50,000 to burn, you could definitely use it to put a down payment on a house, or invest it in a 401(k) in order to actually be able to retire one day. But if those both feel a bit too dull for you, then you could use that nice chunk of change to finally live out your dream of exploring the final frontier.

Space tourism startup World View is offering ordinary people like you (unless Buzz Aldrin is reading this, in which case, big fan!) the opportunity to head to space on the World View Explorer, a fully autonomous spacecraft with pre-determined trajectories, for only $50,000.

Of course, “only” is a relative term here because that number is much cheaper than the projected prices that we have seen from other participants in the privatized space race. Virgin Galactic, which had its inaugural flight this summer, is expected to charge people around $250,000 per seat.

There’s a lot about World View’s space travel plans that are quite distinct from the other major players in the expanding industry of space tourism beyond just the price.

It says that it will have its debut launch in 2024 from Spaceport Grand Canyon, though that space station has not actually been built yet. The voyage is expected to last around 6-12 hours (more than double the length of Virgin’s journey) and the capsule is being designed to lift passengers at around 10-12 miles per hour, which would allow them to not experience G-force or turbulence.

Eventually, World View hopes to have locations all around the globe, allowing aspiring astronauts to live out their dreams for a relatively affordable price. So if you have always wanted to leave this spinning rock we call home behind and take to the skies, you may want to start saving up now because this may be your most realistic chance to make that dream a reality, for the low low price of about $5,000 to $10,000 an hour.