Destinations

Where can you go?

Space travel isn't one experience — it's a ladder. Each rung climbs higher, lasts longer, costs more, and asks more of you. Here are the tiers, from a calm balloon ride to the surface of the Moon.

Five rungs off the planet. Each one climbs higher, lasts longer, and asks more of you.

The Ladder

Five rungs off the planet

1 · Near-space by balloon ~30 km

Emerging

A pressurised capsule under a stadium-sized balloon rises for a couple of hours to the stratosphere, floats along the black edge of the sky, then descends. No rocket, no g-forces, no training — closer to a luxury cruise than a launch. You'll see the curve of the Earth, but you won't technically reach space.

Best for: the view and the calm, without the intensity. Operators: Eos X Space / Space Perspective.

2 · Suborbital hop ~86–100+ km

Paused / delayed

The classic "astronaut for a day." You ride a rocket past the edge of space, unbuckle for a few minutes of true weightlessness, watch the horizon bend against the black, then fall back to Earth. The flight itself lasts minutes; the whole day is training and ceremony around it.

Best for: touching space without a multi-year commitment. Operators: Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin.

3 · Low Earth Orbit ~400–1,400 km

Flying

Now you're actually circling the planet — travelling at roughly 28,000 km/h, seeing a sunrise every 90 minutes, weightless for days at a stretch. A free-flying orbital mission stays in your own capsule; you sleep, eat and float in space without docking anywhere.

Best for: the real orbital experience. Operators: SpaceX (Crew Dragon).

4 · A space station ~420 km

Flying

Dock with an orbiting outpost and live aboard it for up to two weeks — conducting experiments, filming, or simply existing in microgravity with room to move. Today that means the ISS via Axiom; Vast also has a private ISS mission planned for 2027, before purpose-built commercial stations arrive.

Best for: the longest, richest stay in orbit. Mission providers: Axiom Space (flying), Vast (planned).

5 · The Moon ~384,000 km

On the horizon

The next frontier for humans. Government programs are leading the return — a crewed lunar flyby already happened in April 2026 (Artemis II) — but NASA has since restructured the next mission, Artemis III, into an Earth-orbit rendezvous rehearsal for late 2027, pushing the actual south-pole landing to Artemis IV or V in 2028. Private lunar tourism has been proposed but not yet flown. This is where "space travel" becomes "space exploration" again.

Best for: the history-making few. Programs: NASA Artemis with SpaceX; future commercial concepts.

The Next Destinations

The private stations replacing the ISS

The International Space Station is expected to retire around 2030–2031. A new generation of commercial outposts is being built to take its place — the first real-estate of the low-Earth-orbit economy.

Vast — Haven-1~Q1 2027

Aiming to be the first standalone commercial station: a single module for a crew of four, launching on a Falcon 9. Short crewed visits would follow via Crew Dragon.

Axiom Station~2028

The only contender already flying private missions. Its first station module is in final assembly and planned for 2028; a second is expected less than a year later. Together they are intended to form a free-flying station for four crew.

Orbital Reef~2028+

A "mixed-use business park" from Blue Origin and Sierra Space, built around an inflatable habitat and sized for a crew of up to ten.

Starlab~2029

A single large rigid module from Voyager Technologies and Airbus, launched in one piece and focused on science, with European Space Agency involvement.

Already in orbit: China's Tiangong station has hosted crews since 2021 and is expanding — a reminder that the ISS isn't the only outpost circling overhead today.

A Sense of Scale

How far is each rung, really?

Destination	Altitude / distance	Time weightless	Typical trip
Balloon near-space	~30 km	None (gentle)	~6 hours
Suborbital hop	~86–100+ km	2–5 minutes	Under 1 hour in flight
Low Earth Orbit	~400–1,400 km	Days, continuous	3–5 days
Space station	~420 km	Up to 2 weeks	~14 days
The Moon	~384,000 km	The whole voyage	~9–10 days (flyby)

For comparison: a commercial airliner cruises at about 11 km. The suborbital edge of space is roughly eight times higher than that; the ISS, some forty times higher again.

Curious what the ride actually feels like?

G-forces, weightlessness, training, safety — the mechanics of getting from the pad to the black.

How it works ↗