Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic flew to space

Richard Branson flew to the edge of space on July 11. Jeff Bezos flew to the edge of space on July 20. Both livestreams had countdown clocks and commentary and celebration and confetti.

I watched both.

I felt nothing.

This surprised me. I cry at rocket launches. I clapped alone in my apartment when Crew Dragon docked. I’ve watched the Falcon Heavy booster landing dozens of times. Space moves me in ways I can’t fully explain.

But Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin left me empty. And I’ve been trying to figure out why.

What happened

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo carried Branson and five others to 86 kilometers altitude. They experienced about four minutes of weightlessness. They looked out the window. They floated around the cabin. They came back down.

Blue Origin’s New Shepard carried Bezos and three others (including 82-year-old Wally Funk, which was genuinely wonderful) to 107 kilometers. They experienced about three minutes of weightlessness. They looked out the window. They floated around the cabin. They came back down.

Both flights were technically successful. Both were “firsts” of a kind: billionaire space tourists on their own rockets.

And both felt like something important was missing.

The missing thing

I think the missing thing is destination.

When Bob and Doug launched on Crew Dragon, they were going somewhere. The ISS. Orbit. They were going to spend months in space, conducting experiments, maintaining a space station, doing science. The rocket was a means to an end.

When Perseverance launched to Mars, it was going somewhere. A crater that used to be a lake, on a planet 300 million miles away, to look for evidence of ancient life.

When Ingenuity flew on Mars, it was proving that powered flight was possible on another world. That means something for future missions, future explorers, future capabilities.

Branson and Bezos went up and came back down. That’s it. The “destination” was altitude. The purpose was the ride itself. Three minutes of floating, a view of Earth’s curvature, and a return to the desert.

It’s space tourism. And tourism isn’t exploration.

What I want vs. what I got

I think the reason I felt nothing is that I’ve been watching SpaceX for years. I’ve internalized a trajectory that goes: reusable rockets, then orbital flights, then the Moon, then Mars. A narrative with a destination. A story with an arc.

Suborbital tourism is a side quest. It’s technically impressive. It’s commercially interesting. It’ll eventually create a market for wealthy people who want to see the curvature of the Earth for the price of a house.

But it doesn’t advance the story I care about. It doesn’t get us closer to being multi-planetary. It doesn’t push the boundary of what humans can do in space. It pushes the boundary of who can afford a very expensive roller coaster.

I’m aware that I’m being unfair. Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are private companies pursuing legal business models. Branson and Bezos are spending their own money. The engineering is real. The achievement is real.

But I want Mars. I want a base on the Moon. I want humanity to be somewhere other than here, permanently, for reasons beyond a business model. And suborbital hops don’t get us there.

Wally Funk

I will say this. Wally Funk flying at 82 was beautiful. She was part of the Mercury 13, a group of women who passed the same physical tests as the male Mercury astronauts in the 1960s but were never allowed to fly. She waited sixty years. She got her flight.

When the capsule landed and she came out beaming, I felt something. Not nothing. Something.

But that was about Wally, not about Blue Origin. That was a human story. The rest was a press event.

I’m going back to watching Starship prototypes. They explode a lot. But at least they’re trying to go somewhere.

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