It has been nearly three years since Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos flew into space in spaceships built by their respective companies and the billionaire space race dominated news headlines. While public interest in space tourism seems to be fizzling, the nascent industry is steadily moving forward. Branson’s Virgin Galactic (SPCE) and Bezos’s Blue Origin now both fly paying customers to space regularly (although Blue Origin’s space tourism rocket was grounded in 2022 after six crewed flights). And among companies new to the party, other types of space travel vehicles are being built.

In Titusville, Fla., a few miles away from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Space Perspective is busy building a prototype spacecraft that can one day carry eight passengers and a giant hydrogen balloon that will lift it into space. The company has plans to test fly its first crewed mission as soon as this year.

Founded in 2019 by husband and wife Taber MacCallum and Jane Poynter, Space Perspective sells an experience distinctly different from those offered by Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin. Its balloon-powered space capsule, named Spaceship Neptune, is designed to be slowly lifted to the stratosphere, about 100,000 feet (19 miles) above Earth, at a speed of 12 miles per hour. The capsule will feature a bar, a bathroom and huge windows perfect for sightseeing. The entire ride will last six hours, including two hovering at peak altitude, where passengers will be able to see the curvature of Earth and the total blackness of space. It doesn’t provide the thrill of traveling at supersonic speed or floating around in microgravity, but it........

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