The other milestone is the agreement signed between Zero 2 Infinity (Z2I) a Spanish private aerospace firm that also is developing balloon-based technologies to enable cost-efficient access to near-space, and Space Affairs, one of the world's firm specialised in space tourism, space marketing, and providers of flight and space-related experiences, ranging from a near-space flight in a MIG 29 to witness a Soyuz landing in the Kazakhstan plains.
By this agreement, Space Affairs is offering under it's "near space" activities the future flights to be carried out by the spanish firm.
The effort led by José Mariano López-Urdiales which counts with the support in the balloon launch operations of ISTAR Group, a firm with headquarters in Bend, Oregon (United States), had performed several unmanned balloon tests of scaled-down versions of their system, from locations in Spain.
Clearly, is not far the day of the first stratospheric balloon based tourism flight.