The £105k lunch that promises to be out of this world

In a French twist on an out-of-this-world trip, diners will be served a €120,000 meal 15 miles above Earth

Fine food and wine served on the edge of the stratosphere is to bring a distinctly Gallic flair to France’s entry to the race to take tourists out of this world.

A “luxury pressurised capsule” called Celeste is operated by one of two French companies to offer passengers the opportunity to be carried aloft under a helium balloon the size of the Sacré Coeur basilica in Paris and a glimpse of planet Earth from among the stars. The lunch prix fixe starts at €120,000 (about £105,000).

The Zephalto company, founded by Vincent Farret d’Astiès, is bringing a civilised French touch to the contest with American and Japanese space tourism companies, selling trips without the g-forces, weightlessness and steep cost of rockets. It aims to start flights in 2025.

Zephalto, based in Toulouse, and the other strato-tourist companies promise an experience of unparalleled wonder. Jules Verne and Victorian science fiction spring to mind, or perhaps Edgar Allan Poe, who imagined a balloon flight to the moon in 1836. “It springs from a dream of travelling like a sailing vessel towards the stars,” Farret d’Astiès, a former air traffic controller, said.

Carrying six passengers and two pilots, the Celeste will take 90 minutes to climb to 15 miles in altitude then spend three hours there before descending to land in another 90 minutes. Passengers will enjoy Michelin-star cuisine but no chef has yet been named. The cabin interior is to be styled by Joseph Dirand, a fashionable minimalist Paris designer.

“Experience the Overview Effect and feel the extraordinary emotion that only 600 astronauts have felt so far,” Zephalto said.

Despite the price tag, seats have already been fully booked. More costly is the $1.25 million per ticket for Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket, whose passengers for suborbital flight have included William Shatner, Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek. World View Enterprises, based in Arizona, is charging only $50,000 for a ride on its eight-passenger Explorer balloon capsule, which is due to fly to an altitude of 19 miles next year. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space plane is due to charge $450,000 when it finally takes paying passengers.

Zephalto’s capsule design

No rigorous training is required for the Celeste, but psychologists will help to prepare for an unsettling experience. Shatner said he wept with grief on his 2021 suborbital flight.

Training will be needed for passengers on Zephalto’s French competitor, a hydrogen balloon and six-person capsule built by the Stratoflight and Expleo companies. It includes an open balcony on which two passengers will be able to look out over the Earth 20 miles below while wearing pressurised space suits. The craft is designed to glide back to Earth under a paraglider-style wing.

France has been a ballooning pioneer since 1783, when the Montgolfier brothers invented the hot air balloon. The first humans to reach the stratosphere were Auguste Piccard, the Swiss pioneer, and his assistant Paul Kipfer, who arrived in the first pressurised capsule, in 1931. Jean-Luc Picard, the successor to Captain Kirk, was named after Piccard. The record for parachuting from the stratosphere was set by Alan Eustace in 2014 with a jump from 26 miles up. Space begins well above the altitude of the planned passenger balloons, at 50 miles, according to Nasa.

Vincent Farret d’Astiès, the founder of Zephalto. His company has the support of France’s national space agency

Zephalto has the backing of the CNES, the French national space agency, in the development of its reusable balloon and capsule. The company has carried out altitude flights and aims higher tests later this year before certification and planned commercial flights in 2025. Unlike rocket trips, which belch hundreds of tonnes of gas into the atmosphere, the balloon mission will leave no more carbon footprint than that left by the manufacture of a pair of jeans, the company says.

The French and American projects may be beaten by Iwaya Giken, a Japanese start-up that aims to offer “gentle journeys” to 15 miles altitude from late this year aboard a small capsule measuring five feet in diameter and carrying a pilot and a passenger.

The cost of admiring the view from the large windows will be £150.000.