Alternatively...
Dirt-poor southern state subsides trips into near-space for billionaires?
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US space flight firm World View has announced it'll be launching the balloon-lofted passenger podule from a new facility in its home state of Arizona, dubbed "Spaceport Tucson". According to this report, although Florida and New Mexico "both offered incentives to lure the company out of southern Arizona", the Pima County Board …
not entirely sure how the economics and/or politics work but I suspect this is more "dirt-poor southern state competes with other states to keep company in the hope that billionaire visitors will, in the future, spend lots of money in their state on high-altitude ballooning, hotels, food and lots of other sales-tax earning things" ...
There are a couple of things that worry me about this project. When it first aired in El Reg I commented that if the headline photo (same one used in this article) is anything to go by then the occupants are likely to end up suffering from severe motion sickness; far from floating around serenely, it's clear from that headline photo that the 'podule' is swinging rather badly.
Now, just as worrying, there's an (artist's) image of the podule apparently ascending/cruising beneath a deployed and inflated parafoil... Um, well that's not going to work because deployed like that the parafoil canopy would simply collapse and, what with the inevitable twisting and spinning during ascent, would leave the tethers to the canopy badly twisted; there'd be little chance of the canopy successfully inflating during the descent. Moreover, with that configuration, there appears to be no scope for a backup canopy, let alone a smaller drogue chute to stabilise the podule before deploying the main chute.
But then, even assuming that they actually have a more practical deployment scheme, the use of a parafoil ensures a relatively high horizontal speed at touch-down; the landing is going to be more than a little bumpy so unless you're strapped in with a full five-point harness you're going to be injured as the podule tumbles across the ground. I wonder how much repair work to the podule is going to be needed after each landing.