Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic: their space tourism flights explained

Liftoff site

VSS Unity takes off from the Spaceport America launch site near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. New Shephard will lift off from Blue Origin’s private West Texas launch facility.

Crew size

The SpaceShipTwo flight on July 11 fit two pilots and six passengers; New Shepard flies without a pilot and will fit six passengers.

Training time for passengers

Providing you have the money for a ticket, it doesn’t take long to train to become an astronaut with either company: just three days for Virgin Galactic and four days for Blue Origin.

Cost for a seat

Passengers are initially paying $250,000 for a seat on VSS Unity; the first seat on the upcoming New Shepard flight was auctioned off for $28 million. Some passengers on that flight aren’t customers, however — Wally Funk, a “Mercury 13” pilot, was invited to fly on New Shepard as an “honored guest.”

Science payloads

During its July 11 flight, VSS Unity carried tubes of Arabidopsis thaliana plants on behalf of NASA. The tubes, which have been returned to Earth, will allow scientists to study the effects of microgravity on the samples.

It’s unclear whether New Shepard will carry science payloads on its first fully crewed mission, but Blue Origin has flown some on prior test flights.