World View Enterprises, Inc., doing business as World View, is a private American near space exploration and technology company headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, founded with the goal of increasing access to and the utilization of the stratosphere for scientific, commercial, economic, and military[1] purposes.

World View was founded and incorporated in 2012 by a team of aerospace and life support veterans and designs, manufactures and operates stratospheric balloon flight technology and services for a variety of customers and applications, most notably space tourism and stratospheric observation services.

The Stratollite[2] is a remotely operated, navigable, uncrewed stratospheric flight vehicle designed and engineered to station-keep over customer-specified areas of interest for long periods of time (days, weeks, and months).

The main innovation of the Stratollite is its steerability enabling point-to-point navigation and persistent flight over selected area.

[5] The Explorer human spaceflight experience (so called by World View, even though the flight would not reach space by any standards) is under development with the goal of carrying private individuals to approximately 100,000 ft (30.48 km) above Earth inside a pressurized capsule lofted by a helium-filled high-altitude balloon.

Once the pilot nears the target landing zone, the capsule will deploy a patented parafoil system and separate from the balloon.

The flight experience is intended to give passengers a wide-angle and long-duration view of the curvature of the Earth against the blackness of space.

[8] In April 2020, the company delayed development plans of a robust "stratospheric racetrack" due to the COVID-19 pandemic, instead continuing to work with customers on scientific payloads and data collection.

[9] On 3 May 2021, the following text was in the World View company's website: "Our full, flight services portfolio, including the very unique experience we call Explorer, will continue to be a part of the future planning within World View while we focus our near-term attention on our unmanned, stratospheric data and information services.

[16] During a test flight in June 2014 World View successfully deployed and remotely navigated a parafoil back down to Earth from an altitude of 50,000 feet (15 km).

According to an Independent Incident Review Team report, the explosion occurred when deflating the hydrogen balloon: interaction between the plastic balloon shell and/or inflation tube, built up electrostatic charge which then discharged and caused the hydrogen gas, which mixed with atmospheric oxygen, to ignite.

[32] On 13 April 2020, Ryan Hartman said in an interview that World View would delay market-entry plans for their products (mainly the Stratollite) and furlough staff because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

[34] In October 2022, the Arizona Court of Appeals found a contract provision to sell $14 million of Pima County land to World View for $10 unconstitutional.

[36] World View was founded and incorporated in 2012 by a team of aerospace and life support veterans, including Biosphere 2 crew-members Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum, Alan Stern, and former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly.

Prior to World View, Ryan served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Insitu (acquired by Boeing), a pioneer in the design, development and manufacturing of unmanned aircraft.

Prior to World View, Matteo served as Chief Technology Officer of Space Systems Loral (SSL), a leading provider of commercial satellites.