The cost of a suborbital spaceflight on Blue Origin's New Shepard or Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity has declined from early prices exceeding 500,000 dollars to current advertised rates approaching 150,000 dollars per seat as vehicle reusability and launch frequency improvements reduce per-seat costs. The price point, while still accessible only to the wealthy, places space tourism within reach of a meaningfully larger potential customer pool than at the program's inception.
Orbital tourism remains far more expensive, with seats on SpaceX Dragon missions arranged through commercial operators priced between 50 and 80 million dollars. However, the emergence of Axiom Space's commercial space station and SpaceX's aggressive development of Starship promise to increase orbital tourism capacity and competition in ways that could reduce prices over the next decade. The nascent industry is developing safety standards and medical screening protocols that will define the boundaries of the accessible customer pool.
