World View Enterprises is developing a balloon-based system that will carry people to the stratosphere, with the first commercial flights targeted for early 2024, the Arizona-based company announced yesterday.

The typical ride will last six to eight hours and take passengers to an altitude of at least 100,000 feet (30,000 meters), where they'll be able to see the curvature of Earth against the blackness of space. But the overall experience will last five days, which will be spent in and around sites of natural beauty and cultural and historical significance, World View representatives said.

World View's ambition is to change the conversation around space tourism. It's not just a joyride; it's so much bigger and more important than that," company president and CEO Ryan Hartman said in a statement. "We're redefining space tourism for participants by spending hours at apogee [a flight's highest point], building memories around some of Earth's most magnificent wonders."

Each seat on the company's pressurized, eight-passenger Explorer capsule sells for $50,000 — significantly less than any other major space-tourism outfit is charging. And the ride to the stratosphere will be smooth and gentle enough to accommodate people of widely varying ages and fitness levels, according to World View representatives.

"By designing a space tourism experience that is more affordable and more accessible to more people, we're hoping to give as many humans as possible the chance to see our planet from unprecedented new heights," Hartman said.

And World View already has a customer for its first crewed, commercial flight. The nonprofit Space For Humanity bought all of that debut mission's seats and will fill them with citizen astronauts that it will select and train.

"We are very excited about securing World View's first commercial capsule," Rachel Lyons, executive director of Space for Humanity, said in the same statement.

"Our mission is to expand access to space to all and in doing so, support the transformation of our world’s most ambitious leaders so they can use their experience in space to create positive change here on Earth," Lyons added. "This is a groundbreaking time for space tourism, and we're looking forward to giving more people the opportunity to experience it for themselves."