Ron Rosano is one of the world’s most dedicated space tourists.
A 65-year-old property manager from San Francisco, he completed a short trip aboard a Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. spaceplane in 2023 and until recently was expecting to fly more than 60 miles above the Earth on one of Jeff Bezos-founded Blue Origin LLC’s New Shepard rockets.
Rosano has had to change his plans, though, following a surprise move by Blue Origin in January to halt tourism flights for no less than two years. Rosano’s disappointed. “I had painted a pretty large picture of what that might mean for me,” he said. “Seeing the Earth from that perspective: it’s humbling. It’s life changing.”
Companies like Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites LLC envisioned a booming market for space tourism when said in the early 2000s they would launch humans into suborbital space. Space tourism will become a “multi-billion-dollar industry,” said Eric Anderson, co-founder of the space exploration company Space Adventures Inc., in a 2003 issue of Space Times.
Now, the industry’s in crisis. In addition to Blue Origin pausing flights, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic hasn’t flown since June 2024 as it works to develop its new Delta spacecraft.