Your seat to space is closer than you think.
Suborbital hops, orbital stays, and the road to the Moon — a plain-English guide to who flies civilians today, where you can go, what it costs, and what's launching next.
Operators flying civilians today
The routes flying — and forming — right now
A snapshot of civilian spaceflight in 2026. Status reflects publicly announced schedules and can shift; treat dates as targets, not tickets.
Spaceflight is quietly becoming a service you can buy
Tickets, not selections
For six decades, going to space meant being chosen by a government. Today several companies sell seats directly to private citizens — the barrier is increasingly money and training, not a nomination.
Reusable rockets changed the math
Boosters that land and fly again turned launch from a throwaway event into something closer to an airline turnaround, pulling the cost curve down year after year.
Destinations are being built
With the ISS heading for retirement around 2030, private stations are being assembled to take its place — the first hotels and labs of a low-Earth-orbit economy.
Four ways in
Everything on this site fans out from these four questions.
Who flies you?
The operators selling seats today — SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Axiom and more — with vehicles, prices and current status.
Meet the operators 02Where can you go?
From a three-minute brush with weightlessness to a two-week orbital stay — the tiers of the journey and what each one is really like.
See destinations 03How does it work?
Rockets, g-forces, weightlessness, training and safety — the mechanics of leaving Earth, explained without the jargon.
Learn the mechanics 04What's next?
The launches, milestones and timelines shaping the next decade of human spaceflight — and where it's all heading.
Read the outlookCivilian spaceflight, in six moments
The first space tourist
Businessman Dennis Tito pays his own way to the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz — the first private citizen to buy a trip to orbit.
Private crews reach space in the same summer
Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin fly their founders suborbitally weeks apart, and SpaceX's Inspiration4 sends an all-civilian crew to orbit with no professional astronaut aboard.
Axiom opens the ISS to private missions
Ax-1 carries the first fully private crew to the International Space Station, beginning a regular cadence of commercial orbital visits.
The first commercial spacewalk
SpaceX's Polaris Dawn flies to ~1,400 km — the farthest humans have travelled since Apollo — and its crew performs the first private EVA.
Around the Moon again
NASA's Artemis II carried four astronauts on a nine-day lunar flyby — the first crew beyond low Earth orbit since 1972 — splashing down safely in April.
Stations rise, the Moon waits a little longer
Commercial outposts aim to come online while NASA restructures Artemis III into an Earth-orbit rendezvous test — pushing the first Artemis Moon landing to Artemis IV or V in 2028.
Fresh from the launch pad
Virgin Galactic's Apeiron reaches Spaceport America
The first Delta-class ship arrived under carrier aircraft Eve for avionics validation and flight-test preparation. Virgin Galactic now targets early Q2 2027 for its first customer flight.
NASA opens its next commercial-station contract round
The final solicitation asks industry for end-to-end station and transport plans. Proposals are due December 8, with multiple development awards expected in spring 2027.
Axiom targets 2028 for its first station module
The first module is in final assembly; Axiom says a second should follow less than a year later, forming a four-person free-flying station together.
Vast names three Europeans for its 2027 ISS mission
Thomas Pesquet, Aleš Svoboda and Adrianos Golemis are slated for Vast-PAM-1, pending station-partner approval; Golemis would become the first Greek citizen in orbit.
Artemis II crew returns from lunar flyby
Four astronauts splash down off San Diego after a nine-day journey around the Moon — humanity's first crewed trip beyond low Earth orbit in over 50 years.
Virgin Galactic reopens sales at $750,000
The limited tranche later sold out; Virgin Galactic has not yet announced the price or timing of a replacement offer.
Blue Origin pauses New Shepard tourism
After flying dozens of passengers past the Kármán line, the company pauses crewed suborbital flights to concentrate on its lunar ambitions.
Ready to map your route to orbit?
Compare operators, weigh the destinations, and understand exactly what a trip beyond Earth involves.
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