After almost two years of hiatus, Richard Branson’s company returns to sell seats on SpaceShip at record prices. Artemis II reignites enthusiasm, but this opportunity is still far from the general public given that the ticket for the trip now costs a good 750 thousand dollars.
The new space race, rekindled by the mission Artemis IIbrought an idea that seemed suspended between science fiction and marketing back to the center of the collective imagination: travel in space as tourists. And it is precisely in this climate that Virgin Galactic announced the reopening, albeit limited, of ticket sales for its suborbital flights.
Let’s face it right away, it’s not an adventure for everyone. The cost of the ticket is something only for Scrooges who can get an exclusive whim by disconnecting a check for $750,000around 100 thousand more than the last offers before the stop. A clear boundary between dream and reality.
The announcement of the company founded by Richard Branson in conjunction with the return of a manned mission around the moon, to more than fifty years after the Apollo programit doesn’t seem like a coincidence at all, rather a clever marketing ploy.
The return after the break
The reopening comes later almost two year breaknecessary to reorganize the project and develop the new generation of spacecraft, the so-called Delta SpaceShips. These new vehicles promise greater capacity, up to six passengers, and a higher flight frequency, key elements for making sustainable a business that has so far oscillated between media enthusiasm and operational difficulties.
On the operational front, flight testing is scheduled for Q3 2026, with commercial operations expected in Q4, while assembly of the first new SpaceShip is nearly complete and ground testing is expected as early as this April.
The company aims to four flights a month in the initial phase, to reach ten with the consolidation of the fleet. At the moment Virgin Galactic has opened a limited tranche of 50 reservations for its suborbital launches, but several observers fear that this business is not sustainable at all. The share price is a rather irrefutable barometer: to be listed in 2022 the shares were worth 160 eurosnow we are at around 2 euros.
A history dotted with delays and rebirths
On the other hand, Virgin Galactic is not one of those financial success stories, rather it continues to be the quirk of a bold and tenacious eclectic entrepreneur. Founded in the early 2000s with the promise of making space accessible to the common man, or at least an affluent segment of him, it took the company decades to turn the vision into reality. Branson himself, the vivacious British billionaire known for feats such as crossing oceans in a hot air balloon, made his spaceflight on Virgin Galactic to great fanfare in July 2021, followed by the first commercial expedition in 2023.
But the problems were never far away. Accidents (with the death of a pilot), technical delays, vehicle redesigns, stock market collapse: the road has been anything but linear. The VSS Unity made its last flight in 2024leaving commercial operations on hold awaiting the entry into service of the new Delta class ships, designed for lower operating costs.
The engines restart
Now, however, the engines are about to restart again and everyone is confident in the definitive take-off of this extraordinary space adventure, especially the over 650 “future astronauts” who had already booked, fortunately at lower rates. If all goes well, the flights, lasting 90 minutes, they will begin between the end of 2026 and the beginning of 2027.
Artemis II reminded us that space can still move, but this frontier experience remains a privilege for a handful of multimillionaires. With tickets priced like luxury supercars, the experience of a few minutes of microgravity and the view of the curvature of the earth is reserved for a small elite. For everyone else, all that remains is to console themselves with the great science fiction stories and films that have fueled the collective imagination for decades: from “2001: A Space Odyssey” to “Interstellar”, passing through the adventures of Star Trek. The cosmos is perhaps ever closer, but for now only for those who can afford it.
