SpaceX Just Stole the Space Tourism Market From Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin

For three long years, two companies have dueled to dominate the nascent market for space tourism. But that's about to change.2021 featured inaugural space launches from both publicly traded Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE) and privately held Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin, each of which successfully delivered private space tourists to the edge of space (roughly 60 miles up) and then brought them home safely again. To date, Virgin Galactic has now conducted a total of seven "Galactic" commercial flights carrying paying space tourists on its Unity spaceplane. Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital rocket has carried space tourists eight times. That's great and all, but here's the thing: The actual time in space that both of these companies provided their customers amounted to a few minutes at most. When you're paying Virgin Galactic $250,000, $450,000, or even $900,000 for a space ticket, that's not a lot of bang for your buck. And while Blue Origin still isn't advertising its prices publicly, Quartz.com reported in 2022 that one ticket broker paid $2,575,000 for a pair of tickets on one recent Blue Origin flight. At nearly $1.3 million apiece, that's even more expensive. Continue readingWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei MotleyFool Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei MotleyFool