Headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, World View is a pioneering company specialising in stratospheric exploration, operating high-altitude balloons, known as “Stratollites”, to deliver consistent Earth observation for data gathering and disaster relief.
By leveraging the stratosphere, the company offers a cost-effective and sustainable alternative to traditional satellites and aircraft, serving industries such as telecommunications, environmental monitoring, and space tourism. With a vision to inspire new perspectives on Earth and beyond, World View is shaping the future of near-space exploration while promoting sustainability and accessibility in aerospace technology.
We spoke with Dr. Lara Krasnostein, the Vice President for Strategic Supply Chain Science and Technology Partnerships at World View Indo-Pacific to learn a little more about the company’s new Indo-Pacific headquarters at Melbourne Connect and its vision for the region.
That's a lengthy title, could you tell us what your role entails?
World View is at the start-up stage in Australia, as most of our operations are currently based in the United States. Right now, it's all hands-on deck to build our Indo-Pacific operations. We are developing a manufacturing facility in Victoria, designed as a replica of the one at our headquarters in Tucson, Arizona, and I am working to ensure as much of the supply chain as possible is Australian made.
The other parts of my role — Science and Technology Partnerships — is an area I have worked in for the past 15 years. I focus on trilateral partnerships between industry, government and universities to drive R&D initiatives using this new technology.
What attracted you to working at World View?
Prior to joining World View I spent over seven years working with the UK government. I led their science and innovation team focused on building bilateral relationships with innovation ecosystems.
Covid forced my hand in returning to Australia and I was lucky enough to lead the science and innovation team here for the British High Commission. In Australia, we know that our R&D spending is not up to scratch — we have amazing scientists, but our commercialisation efforts haven’t fully capitalised on our research pontential. I wanted to work in a space that we could really launch something in the Australian market that would not only inspire people but also create a whole new industry. That is really what World View is all about.
Australia has amazing strengths to leverage, and World View recognises this potential. That's why I joined this company, to help maximise what Australia does best to create something truly transformative.
Can you tell us a bit about your background?
I did a PhD in pharmacology at university, which was fascinating, and through the course of that I found that I loved travelling the world and meeting scientists, as opposed to being stuck in a lab. When I graduated, I went into marketing communications and stakeholder engagement for a pharmaceutical company.
Later, I freelanced for universities and start-ups, assisting with writing, editing and proofing of scientific papers. I witnessed how that ecosystem worked, and it was extremely collaborative. All these universities worked brilliantly together, and it shows what you can do when these collaborations flourish. Eventually, I found an amazing role at the British Embassy, where I led the science innovation team.
What does World View stand for as a company and what it's trying to achieve?
World View is a stratospheric exploration company that manufactures and operates high-altitude balloon systems. This is an entirely new frontier in the atmosphere that we're ready to discover. There has been plenty of work and research done at a high level in space with satellites, and at a lower level in traditional aeronautical exploration with things such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), but now we have this whole new area to explore, and we don't even know the capacity of the technology in that stratospheric space.
Stratospheric balloons can remain at an area in the atmosphere that is closer to the Earth than traditional satellites, enabling much clearer images. They can also stay up there for 30 days, so we can do prolonged station-keeping for continuous data collection and observation.
Can you explain what stratospheric exploration is?
Stratospheric balloons are built on a 125-metre-long table, with all manufacturing currently done in the US, but we're going to replicate those facilities here in Victoria. When fully deployed, they stretch out to the size of a football field, it’s almost beyond imagination. Made from a very fine plastic that is hand threaded, they go up like a hot air balloon with helium.
When these balloons go up, they aren’t like anything that we’re used to seeing with a Space X rocket, they rise gracefully and folds back under themselves. Equipped with a payload of sensors, they gather data for all sorts of things, and that's really where the brainpower is. All of this acquired data can be analysed for information such as where a bushfire is most likely to happen and what it's going to look like, or helping to guide disaster recovery operations.
What is the overarching mission of World View?
World View’s mission is to inspire, create, and explore new perspectives for a radically improved future. The first arm of the business focuses on agriculture and disaster relief, as well as mining and minerals. Looking ahead, we are hoping to expand into stratospheric tourism and space exploration.
The first modules for stratospheric tourism are currently being built. We believe that getting people up there to learn about what's going on here on earth due to climate change and then having the ability to see it from that perspective will inspire people and create a whole new avenue for innovation.
What does the current global market for stratospheric tourism look like?
It is a very attractive market to be in, and you can see people's eyes light up when we talk about it. We're talking about offering people an eight-day experience that starts with spending time at a camp learning about one of the wonders of the world like the Grand Canyon or the Great Barrier Reef. They will explore how these landscapes were formed over millennia, and the impact of human activity.
This would then culminate in an eight-hour ride up in this beautiful balloon into the stratosphere where you can see the curvature of the earth and view these wonders from above. The capsule has already been built and we're working on everything else that's required to make this a reality.
Tell us a bit more about the data gathering abilities of the balloons
The main use for these stratospheric balloons in Australia in the first instance will be for disaster relief. We’ll be able to observe and make informed predictions on changing climate events such as floods, storms and bushfires.
We hope to get a network of balloons up for the entire bushfire season. If we could have balloons monitoring the land before, during, and after recovery, then there's a huge potential in disaster monitoring that we could be doing here in Australia.
How did World View get started as a company?
Around 2014 there was a parachutist named Alan Eustace who wanted to go up into the stratosphere. His idea was to go up to that stratospheric height and then release himself and skydive back to earth — the skydive was from a height of more than 41 kilometres.
To get him up that high into the atmosphere was where World View’s first incarnation became a reality. That was the inspiration behind high-altitude balloons for Earth observation.
Where do you see World View Indo-pacific in the next one to two years?
Within the next couple of years, we hope to have our office at Melbourne Connect at full capacity. We've got a gorgeous office for around 20 people, and it will be utilised by the management and stakeholder engagement team. We are also planning a manufacturing hub in Victoria that's going to employ approximately 100 to 150 people.
Why is Melbourne Connect the best option for World View Indo-pacific?
There is a huge amount of talent here in Melbourne, people with skills that we require such as engineering and data analytics, and we feel like Melbourne Connect is where we can find a lot of that talent.
I've been working with Melbourne Connect since I got a tour during the pandemic. I was shown around the precinct, and it was beautiful. At the time, I was sceptical that the place was going to work, but when I started working with the UK government and we brought delegations for a visit, everyone was really impressed.
Now that I'm based here and understand the full capacity of what this building offers, it really is mind blowing and it makes my job so much easier, I have opportunities delivered to me daily. Melbourne Connect offers us a connection to The University of Melbourne, which we know as one of the best in the world and one of the universities that we wanted to partner with on a lot of initiatives.
Melbourne Connect can bring in all the other institutes, whether it's locally or internationally. In our first week of being here, we had a Meet the Neighbours session, and I spoke a bit about the company to over 100 people. For me, to have done that in a previous job would have required a huge amount of effort and time on our part. This opportunity was just delivered to me on a silver platter, and it started so many conversations.
This building works exactly as it was intended, and I am so happy we are based here.
How does World View work with researchers?
We want to work with researchers on a few different levels. We want to bring on interns on industry internships that lead them into a commercialisation path. We want researchers to come to us and say, “we want to test out our new remote sensor, can we pop it on your payload if you've got room for it?”. We also want to build research programs from scratch.
We would like to see our Australia operations be hugely successful, potentially more successful than the other arms of the business. This will be amazing for our innovation ecosystem as it will show Australians what can be done in this country. That's important to me, and important to Australia. It's about time we pull up our socks and drive the innovation game as a country.
Thanks for your time, Dr. Krasnostein, it was great to learn more about World View and we can’t wait to see the team grow here in Australia.
