Space Tourism Is Growing, but Most Will Never Be Able to Go

Space tourism hasn't exactly rocketed into the mainstream since Dennis Tito's $20 million jaunt to the International Space Station in 2001, but it has quietly grown up. Per the New York Times, roughly 140 paying passengers have now made it to space, most on quick "up-and-down" suborbital hops, even as grander visions of longer orbital vacations remain rare, ultra-pricey, and often delayed. Virgin Galactic is currently the main player for brief edge-of-space trips: Its 90-minute flights, which include a few minutes of weightlessness near the Karman line, now cost $750,000 a seat; about 650 customers are currently in line, and the company aims to be flying up to 750 people a year by the late 2020s. "We have people who wanted to fly to space their whole lives, including some who saw the moon landing and said, 'I will do that one day,'" says the company's Clare Pelly, who's VP for astronaut operations.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, which has flown 92 people on its vertically launched New Shepard, has paused tourist flights for at least two years to focus on bigger NASA-related projects. For true orbital travel, Elon Musk's SpaceX sells multiday Crew Dragon missions that can run about $200 million for four people, while Axiom Space charges $55 million to $65 million per seat for stays on the International Space Station. Experts say the technology is shifting the central question from whether humans can go to space to whether they can actually live and work there for the long haul. "Just like summiting Everest isn't going to be for everyone, neither will flying to space," says Jamila Gilbert, who flew on Virgin Galactic's last test flight before it started heading into space for real in 2023. "But the optionality that was never there before to have this experience is alive and well now." More here.