When it comes to weddings, there are few places that can compare to the awe-inspiring experience of tying the knot 100,000 feet above Earth. But until now, only astronauts have been able to do that, and only on special occasions. However, it might be about to become a lot easier for non-astronauts to get married in space. A company called Space Perspective is now offering couples the chance to fly up to the edge of space and get married – at a price, of course.
The company is launching its Neptune spacecraft, which is fitted with massive windows to give passengers the best view of our planet that money can buy. It will be lifted by a SpaceBalloon rather than rockets and, thanks to it being powered by renewable hydrogen, it will leave no carbon footprint. The Neptune will then climb up to an altitude of 100,000 feet – giving passengers the chance to see our planet from the very edge of space. The six-hour journey is sure to be exhilarating but the company is also making sure that the trip is a relaxed and comfortable experience for anyone who’s fit enough to travel.
As for the wedding itself, that’ll be conducted via video link with the groom in orbit aboard the International Space Station. The first space wedding took place in 2003, when Russian cosmonaut Ekaterina Dmitriev married her American husband, Yuri Malenchenko, while on a mission to the ISS. She walked down the aisle to David Bowie’s “Absolute Beginners” and then put on her wedding ring herself in front of an astonished audience. The couple stayed together after the event, with their daughter Camilla born in June 2006.
But a space wedding isn’t something that’s open to just any couple. Astronauts have to sign contracts before embarking on a flight that ban them from marrying in space unless they are both going on a mission together. This is because the risks involved in a space mission are too high, and it’s better for them to be focused on their jobs.
However, a few months after the space wedding in 2003, the Russians changed the contract, so that cosmonauts could marry while on a mission as long as they waited to do so until they returned to Earth. Malenchenko did this in 2007 and 2012, and he even got to marry his Russian wife again in Russia, though she had renounced her U.S. citizenship in the meantime.
If you’re interested in getting a space wedding, you can join the waitlist for the Neptune adventure on the Space Perspective website, although the price tag is likely to be light-years out of most people’s budgets. A single seat costs $125,000, but the company says it will launch by 2024. If you’re not quite ready to drop a few hundred grand on your nuptials, don’t worry, there’s always a beach wedding. Or, you could always just go to a local church and tie the knot in a traditional way.