The Future of Commercial Space Travel, Part 1: Suborbital and Rocket Tours

Manned space flight has resulted in the ability to stay in orbit for extended periods through the regular rotation of orbital station crews. In addition to orbital flights and government missions, commercial space flights, primarily for the purposes of tourism, have also become increasingly active in recent years. These trips, which so far remain prohibitively expensive, nevertheless promise to develop into a lucrative business. However, can today’s aerospace sector actually offer reliable transport vehicles for such missions, making them not only more accessible but also cost-effective?

Let’s find out what the manned spaceflight sector will look like in the coming years. In the two parts of this article, we will explore the two main types of manned space flights: suborbital and orbital. Currently, the most interesting developments are happening in the suborbital flight sector, which has become a venue for heated competition between several rivals, primarily Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin.

The dawn of space tourism: the first orbital and suborbital flights

Although the idea of space travel for leisure and recreation purposes emerged at the dawn of the space age, the first actual tourist to reach orbit happened only at the beginning of the 21st century. That tourist was the American entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Dennis Tito, who, in April 2001, made the world’s first private trip to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the “Soyuz-TM32” spacecraft. For his vacation, Tito had to pay $20 million.

During the trip, which lasted almost eight days, Tito orbited the Earth 128 times. However, even this was not enough — in October 2022, Tito, together with his wife Akiko, reportedly purchased tickets from SpaceX for two seats on the Starship spacecraft, which, once commissioned, is to make a flight around the moon.

In the 20 years since Tito’s trip, eight more civilian space tourists have visited the ISS, all of them aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft of various types. These visits were arranged via the direct mediation of the American company, Space Adventures, which was founded in 1998 by entrepreneur and aerospace engineer, Eric K. Anderson. As in the case of Tito’s voyage, the cost of these trips varied from $20 million to $25 million.

For years, “Soyuz” spacecraft have remained the only available means of transport for delivering tourists to the ISS. However, due to the increased crew size of the space station in 2010, the Russian space agency Roscosmos made the unilateral decision to cease taking private clients aboard Soyuz missions. The agency made only one exception to this rule in December 2021, when Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa, along with his business assistant Yozo Hirano, traveled to the ISS aboard “Soyuz MS-20” alongside the Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin.

The ambiguous situation between American Space Adventures and Roscosmos began to change only in the summer of 2019, when NASA officially announced plans to transport future private clients aboard American spacecraft. The main candidates for this role were SpaceX’s Dragon and Boeing’s Starliner, with which NASA had signed contracts for spacecraft development five years earlier. SpaceX’s design was primarily intended for use in commercial flights, while Boeing’s Starliner was meant to be the primary transport for NASA astronauts.

Both vehicles were supposed to make orbital tourism, if not cheap (a trip aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft is estimated at $50 million), then certainly more affordable, since space flights could now occur without unwanted Russian intermediaries.

However, the end of the last decade saw the emergence of another new direction in space tourism: suborbital commercial flights. Such flights did not involve reaching orbital velocity or putting spacecraft into orbit around the Earth at all. Instead, during a suborbital flight, a spacecraft crosses the imaginary Kármán line (100 km above sea level), where outer space “begins,” and, after reaching its peak altitude, returns down to the atmosphere. 

The chief promoters of this new form of space tourism were two American companies: Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, and Virgin Galactic, led by Richard Branson, both of which sought to make space travel more accessible and more affordable. However, both of these ambitious projects have also faced numerous obstacles that continue to hinder their realization.

Virgin Galactic’s soaring dream

The first private suborbital flight took place on June 21, 2004, when SpaceShipOne, a suborbital rocket plane developed by the American aerospace company Scaled Composites, lifted off during the 15P mission. The spacecraft successfully crossed the Kármán line, which automatically classified its mission as a spaceflight.

The design of the suborbital rocket plane, invented by engineers at Scaled Composites, was quite unusual. Firstly, a mothership, in this case a Scaled Composites White Knight-type aircraft equipped with two paired turbojet engines, was required to launch the spacecraft. It took off with SpaceShipOne and carried it to an altitude of 14 km, after which the suborbital rocket plane performed an air launch. It separated from the carrier aircraft and ignited its hybrid rocket engine, which operated on a fuel mixture of solid polybutadiene with terminal hydroxyl groups (often rubber) and a liquid oxidizer, which was a mixture of nitrous oxide. This type of air launch facilitated the execution of short, yet still suborbital, spaceflights.

After the historic 15P flight, Scaled Composites repeated its success twice in the following months, launching the 16P mission on September 29 and the 17P mission on October 4. The latter was the most successful in terms of the altitude and speed that SpaceShipOne was able to achieve. Mission 17P’s pilot, Brian Binnie, flew the rocket plane to an altitude of 112 km, with an onboard speed exceeding Mach 3 (3,785.39 km/h) for the first time in history. Although SpaceShipOne could carry up to three passengers in addition to the pilot, all official flights of the aircraft occurred without passengers for safety reasons. During these flights, extra payloads that simulated the weight of people occupied the passenger seats instead.

The success of the SpaceShipOne flights impressed many, including entrepreneurs who saw the future of the aviation and tourism industries in selling commercial suborbital flights. Among them was Richard Branson, the founder of the venture capital group Virgin Group and the airline Virgin Atlantic. Branson made a lucrative offer to Burt Rutan, the founder of Scaled Composites, and a joint venture between Scaled Composites and Virgin Group, the Spaceship Company (TSC) was established in 2005. TSC’s main customer for spacecraft was Virgin Galactic, which Richard Branson founded in 2004.

Based on the design of SpaceShipOne, TSC developed a new class of suborbital spacecraft—SpaceShipTwo (SS2), the first of which was called the VSS Enterprise. Virgin Galactic planned to produce and operate five commercial SS2-class spacecraft, later named the Virgin SpaceShip (VSS). 

As before, the suborbital VSS was to ascend into the air with the help of a carrier aircraft, the VMS Eve, a suborbital WhiteKnightTwo-type aircraft. Upon reaching its designated altitude, the VSS would detach from the VMS and ignite its hybrid rocket engine to reach maximum speed and an altitude of roughly 80–100 km. Upon crossing into space, the VSS would engage in a brief flight (lasting up to three minutes) in a state of microgravity, which would be experienced by the crew and passengers. After that, the spaceplane would return to the atmosphere and land on a specially equipped runway at Spaceport America in New Mexico.

The most optimistic forecasts called for the VSS to be built by 2008, with its first commercial flights commencing in 2011. However, systematic delays would plague Virgin Galactic throughout its existence. The VSS Enterprise was only the beginning. 

In October 2010, the first successful gliding flight of the second-generation suborbital aircraft (without the use of its engines) took place. It was only three years later, on April 29, 2013, that the craft executed its first flight after igniting its hybrid rocket engine. By this time the engine’s most recent modifications operated on a fuel mixture based on solid nylon and liquid nitrogen, which was used as the oxidizer. After detaching from the mothership, the pilots ignited the VSS Enterprise’s rockets, which burned for about half a minute. After that, they entered a glide and landed the rocket plane.

Despite the constant delays, Virgin Galactic’s marketing department diligently sold tickets for VSS Enterprise’s future commercial flights. By October 31, 2004, when a test flight ended in disaster, destroying the Enterprise, seriously injuring pilot Peter Siebold, and killing his copilot, Michael Alsbury, Virgin Galactic had already sold over 700 tickets for $200,000 apiece (later the price for a single seat had already risen to $250,000). Commercial flights of VSS Enterprise had been expected to begin in 2015, but the October disaster cast severe doubt on whether this would happen.

The 2014 tragedy was caused by the premature deployment of the air pneumatic braking mechanism, by Siebold during an atmospheric reentry maneuver. Due to extreme atmospheric resistance and the speed of VSS Enterprise, which approached Mach 1, the rocket plane immediately began to disintegrate when the control surfaces deployed. It shattered into pieces in mid-air within seconds, its wreckage falling into the Mojave Desert in California. Initial theories regarding the potential causes of the disaster, which blamed a malfunction of the new PF04 rocket engine, were not confirmed, as the engine and fuel tanks of VSS Enterprise were found to be completely intact.

The VSS Enterprise disaster was caused by poor design which, amplified by human error, triggered its destruction and the event effectively put an end to the venture’s future. The incident also highlighted Virgin Galactic’s inadequate safety standards, unsatisfactory pilot training, and a lack of clear regulatory oversight from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Branson’s company attempted to shift the blame onto the test pilots, emphasizing in its press statements that they were actually part of the Scaled Composites team and had no direct connection to Virgin Galactic. This evasiveness, however, did little to reassure potential customers or the company’s investors. Restoring the company’s reputation would require the manufacture of a new spacecraft that would meet all FAA safety standards. Work on this progressed ahead of schedule and, on February 19, 2016, Virgin Galactic unveiled its next SS2 class spacecraft, the VSS Unity.

VSS Unity performed its first flight using its own engine in April 2018. A year later, the rocket plane flew a mission with a passenger on board: in this case, an employee of the company. Despite the fairly good pace of work and the completion of all necessary tests, the VSS Unity project also faced major delays, this time due to external factors that were out of the company’s control. The COVID-19 pandemic, which broke out in early 2020, pushed the date of the spacecraft’s first official flight back by nearly a year.

However, the wait was worthwhile, and when VSS Unity finally lifted off on July 11, 2021, with a full crew on board (two pilots and four passengers, including Branson), Virgin Galactic celebrated a major triumph. During the flight, which lasted just over 14 minutes after detaching from the mothership VMS Eve, VSS Unity reached a peak altitude of 86.2 km above the Earth before landing at Spaceport America. 

Unfortunately, despite this success, the VSS Unity never commenced large-scale commercial flights. In October 2021, Virgin Galactic announced a complete overhaul of the VSS Unity and VMS Eve to construct a new class of suborbital spaceplane, SpaceShipThree, which was to come in two versions: VSS Imagine and VSS Inspire. By 2023, both projects were canceled, and Virgin Galactic, after a period of financial turbulence that led to the layoff of one-fifth of its workforce, announced the beginning of development of yet another new class of suborbital aircraft. The so-called Delta featured more passenger seats (six instead of four) as well as the capability to conduct up to ten flights a month. 

Delta’s development became necessary as a result of the financial losses the VSS Unity and SS3-class ships would have incurred had they ever commenced their flights. Because of the years of protracted development, those suborbital aircraft, which were only capable of making one flight per month, would simply not have been enough to cover the company’s costs to organize and service flights, despite the fact that, as of August 2021, the cost of a single seat on VSS Unity had already reached $450,000.

On June 8, 2024, the VSS Unity took to the skies for one last time, after which the aircraft was retired. Overall, during the year between June 2023 and June 2024, VSS Unity conducted only seven commercial flights, taking just 28 private customers to space, even though Virgin Galactic had already sold over 800 tickets for its suborbital flights. Who knows how many customers still hope to reach space aboard Branson’s aircraft, considering that, as of now, only about 3% of those who purchased tickets have been fortunate enough to redeem them?

The history of Richard Branson’s company is characterized by a desire to be ahead of its time, a desire that has collided with harsh economic realities. Thus far, Virgin Galactic has only presented video of the new Delta-class suborbital spaceplane, and there are no clear timelines for when the new spacecraft will begin commercial missions. In this context, prospects for the future development of suborbital tourism seem more promising from Virgin Galactic’s main competitor, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, which offers its customers space travel using New Shepard rockets.

Space tourism: the Blue Origin alternative

Since its inception, Blue Origin has been interested in the development of space tourism. However, Jeff Bezos’s company took a completely different approach than Virgin Galactic, focusing instead on reaching the edge of space through rockets rather than spaceplanes. Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket could carry out short suborbital journeys for four passengers (later expanded to six) with a total duration of 10 to 12 minutes.

Blue Origin was founded in 2000 by the American entrepreneur, Jeff Bezos. In its 24 years of existence, the company has tested itself in almost every segment of the aerospace business, from manufacturing rocket engines and satellites to producing its own launch vehicles and spacecraft.

Here, we will focus only on its reusable suborbital rocket, New Shepard, which, in three years of commercial launches, has taken 44 private customers on short suborbital journeys. Among the passengers on the New Shepard’s first commercial flight was the company’s founder, Bezos, although his flight took place after Richard Branson’s.

Following the principles of conventional launch vehicles and landing modules, during its re-entry into the atmosphere the New Shepard rocket releases the crew capsule. The rocket’s main stage then lands horizontally on a landing pad while the crew capsule deploys its system of three parachutes for a soft landing after the final descent.

Although information from the company’s 2018 financial reports indicated that New Shepard’s tickets would cost $200,000, it is likely that, with the launch of full commercial flights, this amount has doubled. In any case, the true cost remains unknown to the general public. Most likely, they are close to those of Blue Origin’s main competitor, Virgin Galactic, whose prices currently stand at approximately $600,000.

That said, Bezos’s company has enjoyed much more robust sales than Virgin Galactic. For instance, the most expensive ticket ever sold for a trip on the New Shepard cost $28 million, though this price was driven by the fact that it was sold in an online auction in early 2021. Active bidding led to a dramatic increase in the price for the first suborbital trip on the rocket.

As of now, Blue Origin has completed eight successful private missions. The most recent New Shepard flight took place on August 29, 2024. Since commencing commercial flights, Blue Origin has proven quite competitive, but the company’s recent moves suggest that it is likely to depart from the suborbital commercial travel market. One major indication is the upcoming debut of the New Glenn heavy rocket, which is set to launch in November this year. Blue Origin has also begun to focus on orbital missions for NASA and future participation in the Artemis lunar program. As part of its work on the Moon program, the company is currently developing the Blue Moon crewed lunar lander, which is intended to be launched aboard New Glenn during Artemis missions.

The company has stated that New Glenn could also carry passengers; however, it is likely referring to transporting people to the Orbital Reef commercial orbital station, which the company has been developing since 2021. Little is known about the Orbital Reef, but there have been suggestions that it could be launched into orbit in 2027.

It now appears that Blue Origin used its commercial suborbital missions as a sort of springboard for gaining experience in conducting crewed missions. Now, the company is focusing its efforts on more ambitious plans that extend beyond low Earth orbit: suborbital tourism may simply be too small a playing field for this emerging aerospace giant.

The future of suborbital space tourism

As we can see, the competition between Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin over the suborbital space tourism market currently favors the latter. This is evident purely by the number of passengers the company has been able to transport to orbit: 44 compared to Virgin Galactic’s 28. This gap is likely to grow even further since the Delta spaceplanes have not yet even begun commercial flights.

Overall, however, the financial prospects for the suborbital commercial flight market remain quite uncertain. Some estimates suggest that the capitalization segment could grow to $2.7 billion by 2032 (according to the latest Imarc report), but this is contingent upon an annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15%. Considering that, in 2023, total market capitalization stood at $703 million, this could represent a significant improvement.

That said, the active growth of the suborbital travel market will continue to be hindered by its niche status, as space travel remains a privilege for ultra-wealthy clients. This situation will only be remedied by rapid technological advancements that could lead to a substantial reduction in the cost of space travel, but such developments remain elusive.

Reusable suborbital vehicles currently account for a large share of the market, significantly outpacing parabolic flight spaceplanes. This trend is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Taken as a whole, suborbital flights remain an important laboratory for testing orbital spacecraft, spaceplanes, and launch vehicles.