On July 1lth Virgin Galactic（维珍银河）finally realized the promise that it would take passengers on life-changing trips in its spaceships. For 4 minutes, its 6 temporarily weightless passengers, including the firm's co-founder, Sir Richard Branson，saw the planet's curvature（曲度）against the blackness of outer space. He may have been pleased to beat Jeff Bezos, Amazon's retired boss, who would go slightly higher for slightly less time in a vehicle built by his own company, Blue Origin, on July 20th.
The two are among a growing group of fans who believe space travel's time has come. Suborbital（亚轨道的） tourism is part of a broader space economy that has boomed over the past decade thanks to technological advances. Those at Morgan Stanley expect the entire space economy to bring in $1 trillion by 2040, from ＄350 billion today. UBS expects the entire space economy to produce ＄800 billion by the end of this decade. Space travel, it thinks, will make" a big contribution" to that total.
But that is highly unlikely. For example, space travel is not even Blue Origin's main goal. The company is focusing on developing a large new rocket for launching satellites, on selling advanced rocket engines to other companies and on winning NASA contracts such as that for a system to land humans on the Moon. In the long run, Mr. Bezos doesn't see Blue Origin as a provider of services to thrill-seekers.
The business can be promising once regular flights begin to offset（抵消）the rockets' development costs. But how fast and by how much is uncertain. Without tourist-friendly places to visit, space travel, with its far higher ticket prices, will not be a huger earner.
Another challenge-also the biggest uncertainty-relates to safety. History has shown that a disaster can set progress back by years. Even with no accidents, problems may come up. Strict top-down rules could mean that industry will no longer have the freedom to pursue new approaches to improving safety.
Space travel may remain a hobby for a few super-rich with a desire to take risks and lots of time to spare. Not exactly a mass market, then, for the time being.
