Photo/Illutration Keisuke Iwaya, right, president of Iwaya Giken, introduces the stratospheric balloon cabin his company created in Tokyo’s Meguro Ward on Feb. 21. (Go Takahashi)

SAPPORO--A local startup is launching a “space tourism” business to take sightseers on balloon rides 25 kilometers into the stratosphere to marvel at views of the curvature of the Earth.

And it says the ticket prices, while not cheap, will not be out of this world.

The company, called Iwaya Giken, said passengers can easily make the trip without any special training because there will still be gravity at that altitude.

It expects that customers can utilize the service by the end of the year at the earliest. On a trip, a balloon will ascend for two hours, allowing its occupants to enjoy the view for one hour before it lands back in the ocean.

The cost for a ride will initially start at around 24 million yen ($178,100) per person. But that figure should eventually come further down to Earth.

“In the future, we will be able to reduce the price to the range between 1 million yen and 2 million yen,” said company President Keisuke Iwaya, 36.

The firm showcased the plastic pod-like cabin it designed for the balloon at an event on Feb. 21.

The balloon measures 41 meters high and has a spherical two-seater cabin, which is 1.5 meters in diameter.

The cabin is specially designed to be unaffected by the changes in temperature and air pressure. It comes equipped with life-support equipment and can be transformed into a parashoot in the event of an emergency.

The startup developed everything in-house to ensure safety, including its communication devices, Iwaya said.

The company plans to recruit five passengers and a pilot for the first batch of flights by the end of this year and expects to launch them out of Hokkaido.

It has conducted more than 300 flight tests already, and the highest point the balloon has reached is about 40 km into the sky.

JTB Corp., a major travel agency, is organizing the tours with the startup and will decide when it is ready to sell packages after reviewing the data from the experiments and test-flight performances.

The U.S. startup Space Perspective is also planning to launch a similar balloon tour business. The first flight is scheduled for the second half of 2024.