World View Offers Cost-Sharing Balloon Flights to Stratosphere

The cost of sending a scientific experiment to the stratosphere aboard a balloon just went down. Arizona-based World View Enterprises announced today (Sept. 8) that it's introducing a cost-sharing system that will let researchers and educators loft payloads to near space, about 130,000 feet (39,600 meters) above Earth, via a balloon for as little as $20,000. The new system applies to payloads that range in mass from less than 1 pound (0.45 kilograms) to more than a few hundred pounds, World View