And speaking of space, why use a telescope when you could snag an even more stellar view of the stars? Space tourism is absolutely growing. And while big companies are offering pricey commercial flights, some startups are going a different route. Cnbc's Magdalena Petrova explains.

So we're standing in front of a mockup of our space tourism capsule. The capsule itself is designed to carry eight customers and two crew into the stratosphere. The actual capsule is Inside of the capsule, there will be a center bar where people can gather. And then, of course, there will be a bathroom aboard the capsule, considering these are going to be six-hour long flights.

Ryan Hartman is the CEO of Worldview. The Tucson, Arizona-based company was founded in 2012 and is one of a number of startups hoping to hoist tourists to the stratosphere using pressurized capsules and massive gas-filled balloons.

The largest balloon that we manufacture is for our space tourism business. It's about 600 feet long, which is the length of this entire table.

Worldview says that when fully inflated, its tourism balloons will be big enough to fit an entire football stadium on the inside and be able to lift over 10,000 pounds. But Worldview is not the only company working on this technology. Founded In 2019 in Florida, space perspective has raised around $80 million to date and recently revealed the design of its spaceship, Neptune capsule.

Spaceship Neptune is going up to 100,000 feet, approximately 20 miles above the Earth, where you can see that curvature of the Earth. You'll be able to see roughly 450 miles in every direction.

Recent polls show that only 35% of Americans say they would be interested in traveling on a private spacecraft to orbit Earth. For the remaining 65% of people, there could be another option, traveling to the stratosphere. But unlike SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic, these stratosphere balloon companies will not take passengers all the way into space, the start of which is generally accepted by the US government to be around 80 kilometers or around 50 miles above the Earth's surface. Instead, most of these balloons will reach heights of about 15 to 19 miles above the Earth's surface, flying in an area known as the stratosphere. For reference, this is still nearly three times higher than the altitude at which most commercial flights travel. We asked the companies about this detail. There were people that argued that worldviews marketing as a space experience is misleading. What do you say to those people?

Well, our experience is around viewing our Earth and experience experiencing the darkness of space. At 100,000 feet, people are going to be able to see the termination line where night is turning into day or day is turning into night and see them moving across the surface of the Earth. They're going to be able to see weather forming and moving. They're going to see an organic Earth. They're going to see a living Earth. That's what's most important to us.

All the stratosphere balloon companies we spoke to are still developing and testing their systems. Only Zafalto has performed any crude test so far, though not at the company's target altitude of about 15 miles above the Earth's surface.

The first flight, the first prototype, took place in 2018. Now it's the fifth generation, and we'll fly at 25 km before the summer.

We have approximately 10 uncrew test flights to do before we start flying with people.

Space Perspective and Worldview would not give CNBC an exact date for when they plan to begin commercial flights, but Xafalto said the company is aiming for 2025. When they do get off the ground, Worldview, Space Perspective, and Xafalto all say their experiences will last several hours. Prices per ticket vary, ranging from $50,000 per seat with Worldview to around $184,000 per seat with Xafalto. By comparison, the trips offered by Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are much shorter and much more expensive. Virgin Galactic, for example, sells tickets to its 90-minute long flight for $450,000 seat. Compared to rocket-powered space tourism, the physical sensation that passengers will experience on a stratosphoric balloon ride is much more comparable to being on an airplane. Passengers will not experience weightlessness.

This is not a thrill ride. The capsule is designed in what we call a shirt sleeve environment where you don't have to wear any specialty equipment.

We don't need any physical requirements to board the balloon. If you can board a standard plane, you can board the balloon.

For our customers, this is all about the incredible experience of seeing Earth in space. I would be able to give them that experience without the high Gs that come with rocket flight, without having to do any of that training.

Under current regulation, commercial companies in the United States do have to abide by a few rules to get a FAA license to fly their vehicles, which includes requirements for flight crew training and qualifications.

Right now, these include showing that you have life support. You need to show that your vehicle is going to operate the way that you intend it to operate, and that's done through a demonstration of an actual operational test flight.

All indications tell us that space tourism is here to stay. I think that that belief is inherent in all of us, that we want to understand our Earth. We want to understand the planet.

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