The last, best hope for space tourism just rolled onto a runway in Arizona

The private space tourism era looked so very promising five years ago. Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic had begun flying customers—real people with zero space experience—on suborbital missions. And at about the same time, private citizens were going to orbit for days at a time aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. But that was then.

五年前，私人太空旅游时代看起来前景一片大好。蓝色起源（Blue Origin）和维珍银河（Virgin Galactic）已经开始搭载普通人——那些毫无太空经验的真实客户——进行亚轨道飞行。与此同时，私人公民也开始搭乘 SpaceX 的载人龙飞船（Crew Dragon）在轨道上停留数日。但那已是过去式。

Consider the state of play today: It has been 10 months since Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft flew its last mission in January. The program was subsequently “paused,” but let’s be real. Blue Origin has moved on. New Shepard’s engineering teams are now supporting the New Glenn rocket and Blue Moon lander programs. SpaceX flew its final free-flyer mission on Dragon, Fram2, in April 2025. A handful of non-NASA missions bound for space stations remain on the spacecraft’s manifest, but all are likely to carry at least one government astronaut. Then Dragon will be retired. There is no credible timeline for SpaceX’s Starship to fly humans into space from Earth. As for Virgin Galactic, the company flew its final suborbital mission on the VSS Unity spacecraft more than two years ago, in June 2024. So we are now 10 months, and counting, without a space tourism mission in the United States.

看看今天的现状：蓝色起源的“新谢泼德号”（New Shepard）航天器自一月份执行最后一次任务以来，已经过去了 10 个月。该项目随后被“暂停”，但说实话，蓝色起源已经转向了。“新谢泼德号”的工程团队目前正在支持“新格伦号”（New Glenn）火箭和“蓝月”（Blue Moon）着陆器项目。SpaceX 于 2025 年 4 月执行了龙飞船的最后一次自由飞行任务 Fram2。虽然该飞船的清单上还剩下少数非 NASA 的空间站任务，但每一项任务都可能至少搭载一名政府宇航员。之后，龙飞船就将退役。目前没有关于 SpaceX 的“星舰”（Starship）从地球运送人类进入太空的可靠时间表。至于维珍银河，该公司在两年多前（即 2024 年 6 月）使用“团结号”（VSS Unity）航天器执行了最后一次亚轨道任务。因此，美国已经有 10 个月没有进行过太空旅游任务了，而且这个数字还在增加。

Hello Apeiron, you shiny object. At the time of Unity‘s final flight, Virgin Galactic said it was moving on to the second generation of its suborbital spacecraft. It planned to bring two of these Delta-class ships into service by the year 2026. Of course, it is now 2026, and there are no Delta-class ships in service. But apparently we are getting closer to that goal. On Wednesday, the first Delta-class ship received a name: Apeiron. According to Virgin Galactic’s news release, the name is drawn from the ancient Greek concept of the boundless, which is an interesting choice for a vehicle that will forever be bound by Earth’s gravity. It was chosen through a public vote. “We’re proud that the lead ship in Virgin Galactic’s Spaceship fleet will carry a name chosen by the people who share our excitement for what comes next,” said Michael Col.glazier, chief executive officer of Virgin Galactic.

你好，Apeiron，你这个闪亮的新物件。在“团结号”最后一次飞行时，维珍银河表示将转向第二代亚轨道航天器。它计划在 2026 年前让两艘“三角洲级”（Delta-class）飞船投入使用。当然，现在已经是 2026 年了，还没有任何“三角洲级”飞船投入使用。但显然，我们正离这个目标越来越近。周三，第一艘“三角洲级”飞船被命名为“Apeiron”。根据维珍银河的新闻稿，这个名字取自古希腊关于“无限”的概念，对于一个永远受地球引力束缚的飞行器来说，这是一个有趣的选择。这个名字是通过公众投票选出的。维珍银河首席执行官迈克尔·科尔格拉齐尔（Michael Colglazier）表示：“我们很自豪，维珍银河飞船机队的首舰将使用由那些与我们一样对未来充满期待的人们所选出的名字。”

But more significantly, the company said Apeiron would be moved from its Spaceship Factory in Mesa, Arizona, to Spaceport America in New Mexico later on Wednesday. Apeiron won’t be making a free flight anytime soon. After being carried to New Mexico by the VMS Eve, aircraft engineers and technicians there will complete work on the vehicle’s avionics equipment and flight software. Following additional ground tests, Apeiron will be mated again to Eve for captive carry tests, followed by a drop test and ultimately a powered test flight above 80 km.

但更重要的是，该公司表示，Apeiron 将于周三晚些时候从位于亚利桑那州梅萨市的飞船工厂转移到新墨西哥州的美国太空港（Spaceport America）。Apeiron 不会很快进行自由飞行。在被“夏娃号”（VMS Eve）运送到新墨西哥州后，那里的飞机工程师和技术人员将完成该飞行器的航空电子设备和飞行软件的调试工作。在进行额外的地面测试后，Apeiron 将再次与“夏娃号”对接进行挂载飞行测试，随后进行投放测试，最终进行 80 公里以上的动力测试飞行。

Is this the future of space tourism? Presently, the company is saying it now expects Apeiron’s first commercial spaceflight to take place “early” in the second quarter of 2027. As with every other projected date in aerospace, this should be taken with a grain of salt. But it seems plausible that Apeiron may begin flying paying customers on suborbital space tourism missions over the next 12 to 18 months. There is considerable skepticism about the commercial viability of Virgin Galactic’s space tourism ambitions. Success will require its vehicles to fly nearly flawlessly and with unprecedented durability to bring hundreds of people to space each year briefly. As this reality has dawned on investors, the markets have not been kind to the company in recent years. In 2021, at the height of space tourism euphoria, the company’s stock briefly reached a stratospheric valuation of $1,118 a share. More recently it has been trading in the vicinity $2.50 a share. Whatever you might think of Virgin Galactic, however, it seems clear that any hopes of expanding the aperture of space tourism in the next decade will be flying beneath its wings.

这就是太空旅游的未来吗？目前，该公司表示预计 Apeiron 的首次商业太空飞行将在 2027 年第二季度“早期”进行。和航空航天领域的每一个预测日期一样，这个时间表也应持保留态度。但 Apeiron 在未来 12 到 18 个月内开始搭载付费客户进行亚轨道太空旅游任务似乎是可行的。人们对维珍银河太空旅游雄心的商业可行性存在相当大的怀疑。要取得成功，其飞行器需要近乎完美地飞行，并具备前所未有的耐用性，才能每年将数百人短暂地送入太空。随着投资者意识到这一现实，近年来市场对该公司并不友好。2021 年，在太空旅游热潮达到顶峰时，该公司股价曾短暂达到每股 1118 美元的惊人估值。而最近，其股价一直在每股 2.50 美元左右徘徊。然而，无论你对维珍银河有何看法，显而易见的是，未来十年扩大太空旅游规模的任何希望，都将寄托在它的机翼之下。