The Chainsmokers have performed pretty much everywhere over their ten years as a duo, but soon (relatively, at least), Drew Taggart and Alex Pall will go where no other artist has gone before: In 2024, space tourism company World View is sticking the pair in a pressurized capsule tethered to a stratospheric balloon about 20 miles above Earth.
Ryan Hartman, World View CEO, tells the Associated Press that this will make The Chainsmokers the first musical artists to perform at the edge of space. (Presumably, recent thematically appropriate single “High” will be on the setlist.)
The duo said in a statement, “We have always dreamed of going to space and are stoked to collaborate with World View to have this adventure and experience. We know the views of both Earth and space are going to be incredible and inspiring and we hope to leverage this flight for creativity on future projects.”
While it’s not easy to point out exactly where Earth’s atmosphere ends and space begins, one widely acknowledged definition is the Kármán line, which is 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) above Earth’s mean sea level. The line is above the troposphere (where we live), stratosphere, and mesosphere, located near the bottom of the thermosphere. So, at 20 miles up, the duo will be 30-ish percent of the way to space from the Earth’s surface.
It will certainly look like most people’s idea of space up there, though: Here’s the view from 20 miles up in the sky.