Swiss Space Systems' modified Airbus aircraft, seen here in a prototype photo, will offer passengers a ZeroG experience operating out of North Bay as early as next September. Passengers will pay between $2,800-$7,000 for a 90-minute flight, during which they will experience intervals of weightlessness. FILE PHOTO FROM S3 MEDIA ROOM
Just as the passengers of Swiss Space Systems’ (S3) zero-gravity flights will be reaching new heights, so too will North Bay’s tourism sector.
After S3 announced last Friday that it will be offering zero-gravity flights out of North Bay as early as next September, Mayor Al McDonald says the economic impact of the attraction can be very beneficial for the city.
In doing so, North Bay will become the only city in Canada to offer the unique experience, drawing customers from across the country and continent.
“We want [tourism] inventory; in other words, we want a reason for people to come to North Bay,” McDonald said in an interview with BayToday Thursday. “This is obviously a special attraction that will add to that.
“We’re going to show up all over now, so it’s just another tool in the toolbox to showcase our city,” he continued.
The 90-minute flights, which will treat passengers to a series of parabolas at over 30,000-feet, will give the passengers the sense of weightlessness for 20-25 second intervals.
Mayor McDonald said the S3 announcement will likely have a big impact on tourism in North Bay. While exact kickback figures are obviously not known at this time, McDonald says the intangible benefits of the S3 announcement will match the tangible ones.
S3, a Payerne, Switzerland-based company, has earmarked the adventure to cost anywhere between $2,800 and $7,000 per passenger, depending on which area of the plane the customers sits. Each modified S3 Airbus aircraft is also capable of carrying up to 80 passengers per trip.
With a price tag like that, the S3 flights will undoubtedly attract a whole new realm of tourists to the area, perhaps unlike anything North Bay has experienced before.
“Their target is very high-end, so obviously we’re going after the well-heeled tourist,” said McDonald. “It really targets a certain segment: those who are interested in space and have a lot of disposable income.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity to attract the well-off tourists to our city; it puts us on the map, for sure,” the Mayor continued. “Any time you can bring tremendous attention into the city, there’s going to be tremendous spinoff as well.”
Upwards and onwards
Despite the obvious benefits that winning the S3 contract will bring to North Bay, the Mayor insists this is merely a primal step in a much larger plan for what the airport industrial park can do for the city, which he addressed during his inaugural speech on Monday.
“This is still just a small component of the overall program, but from a tourism perspective there’s no question that this brings a lot of attention to the city,” McDonald said. “Space and space-related industries are the future generation of jobs, and we’re ideally located for success because of our location in North America.”
McDonald alluded to a few of the features that promise exciting projects for the future. Most notably, the 10,000-foot runway that is capable of landing anything the flies, the large geographical flight test corridor, upwards of 600 acres of available industrial lands around the airport business park, and North Bay being within a day’s drive of a significant amount of people, to name just a few.
Another one of the upsides is S3’s new partnership with Canadore College, which resulted in the federal government kicking in $2 million of funding for the construction of an Advanced Composites Fabrication, Repair and Test Centre.
That partnership will also allow S3 to use Jack Garland Airport to continue to develop a new system that delivers small satellites into orbit via a reusable launch platform, a much more economical and cost-efficient system.
In addition, Nipissing-Temiskaming MP Jay Aspin announced last week that he has established a parliamentary Space Caucus in order to focus on priorities unique to the space industry.
Just last Friday, Aspin hosted a forum between the Canadian Space Agency, S3 and Canadore College, during which all parties had the opportunity to visit city aerospace assets and interact with local companies.
According a statement on Aspin’s website, the commercial space industry contributes more than $3.4 billion to the national economy and employs over 8,000 people. Needless to say, that’s a sector that North Bay intends on tapping into even further.
For more information on S3’s ZeroG experience, click here: https://zerog.s-3.ch/
