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.
Consider the state of play today: So we are now 10 months, and counting, without a space tourism mission in the United States. 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 not any 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.
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