Is Space Tourism Finally Ready for Takeoff?

In 2001, Dennis Tito, an American entrepreneur, paid a reported $20 million for a voyage to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, officially becoming the first space tourist.

“It was eight days of euphoria,” he said from the steppes of Kazakhstan after returning to Earth.

The modern space tourism landscape is more robust and commercial than when Mr. Tito took flight. For one, it is dominated by private, billionaire-led companies: Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin lead the way, though their short-term plans have diverged in recent months.

As of this year, about 140 people have traveled to space as tourists, most of them on short trips to and from the edge of the atmosphere. But broader plans for more ambitious spaceflights — trips that take passengers on longer journeys, in orbit — haven’t materialized beyond a handful of billionaire-financed exceptions. All the while, the development of a wider market for space tourism has been hampered by delays, rising costs and shifting corporate and governmental priorities.

Here’s what to know about the current state of space tourism and where it might be heading.

The Suborbital Experience

Today, a vast majority of commercial spaceflights are suborbital, and Mr. Branson’s Virgin Galactic is the main provider. In a round trip of about 90 minutes, tourists ascend close to the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary for space, about 62 miles above sea level, where they experience several minutes of weightlessness.

Jamila Gilbert flew aboard Virgin Galactic’s final test flight before it began offering commercial services in 2023. In a recent interview, she said she remembered unstrapping her seatbelt and floating around inside the cabin while Earth loomed ethereally outside her window. “Everything that you have ever known has lived within the bounds of it,” she said, “and all of a sudden you’re looking at it from above.”

Before the flight to space, tourists must undergo three days of training at the company’s Spaceport America, in New Mexico, which includes medical checks, mission briefings and both physical and mental preparation.

On launch day, a Virgin Galactic carrier plane called the Virgin MotherShip climbs for about 50 minutes to around 50,000 feet, before releasing the attached spaceship that will ferry passengers the rest of the way to the Kármán line.

“When you escape the atmosphere,” said Ms. Gilbert, “you’re suddenly in the quietest place you’ve ever been.”

Virgin Galactic has flown 32 passengers to space since 2018. The price of a ticket was initially $200,000, and it has climbed steadily since. After a two-year pause, the company resumed ticket sales this year with a price tag of $750,000 per seat. This summer, the company is testing its new SpaceShip, which increases passenger capacity to six, up from four. Suborbital trips are expected to resume by the end of the year.

There are around 650 passengers waiting for a spot aboard a Virgin Galactic flight. But if all goes to plan, most are expected to fly by 2027 or 2028, when the company said it plans to have the capability to fly 750 passengers to space per year.

“We have people who wanted to fly to space their whole lives,” said Clare Pelly, the vice president for astronaut operations, “including some who saw the moon landing and said, ‘I will do that one day.’” The company’s customers, she said, are joined more by a shared set of values and life goals than a particular demographic, and 60 countries are represented on the waiting list.

“It sounds a little cheesy,” said Ms. Pelly, “but we deal with people’s lives and dreams.”

The company estimates that around 300,000 people globally have the appropriate net worth and desire to take part in a suborbital trip, a number that company officials predict will grow about 8 percent annually.

Virgin Galactic said it planned to substantially increase the accessibility of suborbital space travel in coming years as it adds new flights. Several more spaceships are being built, and there are plans for at least one more spaceport in Europe or the Middle East.

“Just like summiting Everest isn’t going to be for everyone, neither will flying to space,” said Ms. Gilbert. “But the optionality that was never there before to have this experience is alive and well now.”

Others may be getting out of the tourism game. Blue Origin, Mr. Bezos’ competing operation, announced after the completion of its 38th successful suborbital trip in January that it would pause its New Shepard private passenger program for at least two years. In suspending its suborbital operations, the company said that it would instead focus on building an orbital rocket and developing a lunar lander for NASA.

Unlike Virgin Galactic, whose vehicles take off like normal airplanes, Blue Origin rockets launch vertically, and their suborbital flights last about 11 minutes. A total of 92 people have flown to space aboard the New Shepard reusable rocket, which flies autonomously.

Orbital Travel, and the Future

Compared with suborbital travel, orbital trips are far more technically challenging and require that spacecraft reach significantly higher speeds.

SpaceX, Mr. Musk’s company, offers tourists the opportunity to enter orbit aboard Crew Dragon, billed as “the first private spacecraft to take humans to the space station.” These private trips last three to six days, require up to nine months of extensive training and cost about $200 million for four passengers. So far, about two dozen tourists have made the journey, including a cryptocurrency tycoon, an e-commerce billionaire and the friend of a sweepstakes winner. (Like Blue Origin, SpaceX is also working to build a lunar lander for NASA, though lunar tourism is still only in early planning stages.)

Axiom Space, a Houston-based company, has taken more than 20 private passengers since 2022 on SpaceX rockets to stay on the International Space Station. Tickets cost from about $55 million to $65 million per seat, with trips lasting up to about two weeks. Axiom is also competing to build the space station’s replacement — NASA and its international partners plan to discontinue the I.S.S. at the end of 2030 — as the world’s first commercial space station.

Some experts, like Rachel Fu, a professor of tourism and hospitality at the University of Florida, predict that a plethora of tourist experiences will become available in the coming years — orbital hotels, research labs, lunar missions.

Others predict that as more entities begin operating in space, a more crowded ecosystem will bring new challenges, including how countries and companies will coexist there.

The defining question, Dr. Fu said, is no longer “Can we go?” but rather “Can we stay, operate and thrive?”