Technologies

Virgin Galactic Reenters Space Tourism Market at $750K Per Ticket

New Delta-class spacecraft promises more seats and more flights — at an even steeper cost than before.

Nearly two years since Virgin Galactic’s last space flight, the company will once again take regular citizens up into space — regular citizens who have an extra $750,000, that is. It began accepting online reservations on Monday, with a price tag substantially higher than the $600,000 it charged for trips in 2023.

The next expeditions will take place aboard the company’s new Delta Class craft, which can hold six passengers (up from four) and can fly twice per week. Virgin Galactic said it will test the new ship this summer and will begin commercial trips in the fall. The first flights will be for research to gather data for how the ship performs, and then passenger flights will begin 6 to 8 weeks after those research expeditions, the company said.

If all goes as planned, the first nonresearch passengers could be flying into space before the end of the year, the company said.

The company will sell 50 tickets at $750,000 each, then pause sales after all are sold. The company will «step our pricing up as we go» when sales resume, CEO Michael Colglazier said during the company’s earnings call earlier this week. He said they have not settled on future ticket prices.

A representative for Virgin Galactic told CNET that the company will not announce how many of those 50 tickets have been sold so far or who the customers are.

Lots of folks are waiting

Virgin Galactic won’t only be taking up new customers to space. There is a backlog of 675 people, who the company calls their «founding astronauts» or «future astronauts» — people who paid deposits as long as a decade ago for future flights. Because they paid years ago, their trip costs will be much lower than those of people buying tickets now.

Future flights could include both new customers and these founding astronauts from that backlog.

Virgin Galactic’s goal, Colglazier said, is to take 10 trips per month by 2027. That would be about 60 passengers per month.

A substantial investment has been made in space tourism, albeit by a handful of companies, since engineer and entrepreneur Dennis Tito became the first «space tourist» in 2001. Virgin Galactic has taken 23 customers into space, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has flown 98, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has taken 20. Axiom Space and Space Adventures — the pioneering company that took Tito up — have taken several customers to the International Space Station.

The space tourism market is forecast to grow from $2.3 billion in 2026 to $47 billion by 2034, an annual increase of 45%, «for leisure, exploration, and experiential travel beyond Earth’s atmosphere,» according to research firm Fortune Business Insights.

The Virgin Galactic news comes on the same day that NASA will launch its first human flight to the moon since 1972. Four astronauts — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen — will fly the Orion spacecraft around the moon, but not land on it, during the 10-day mission. CNET offers live updates and the live stream for the launch.

Virgin Galactic’s last flight was Galactic 07 on June 8, 2024, on the VSS Unity, its first craft. That was the final trip of a 12-flight mission before the company began setting its sights on developing its Delta Class ships for longer customer trips. Multibillionaire Richard Branson, who founded the company in 2004, took his inaugural flight on July 11, 2021.

‘Shockingly thin blue line’

Ron Rosano, from San Rafael, California, fulfilled a lifelong dream with his Virgin Galactic trip in 2023. He recalls his three minutes of weightlessness and the g-forces from the ship’s rocket firing.

Rosano told CNET he remembers «the view of this incredible, miraculous planet floating suspended in the empty black vastness of space, seeing the shockingly thin blue line of our atmosphere on the edge of the planet. Sadly, the idea that we humans are suspended in gravity orbiting the sun on a spaceship, a spaceship Earth, does not sit very much at all in our consciousness.»

Virgin Galactic flights reach as high as 50 miles above Earth’s surface, a distance recognized by both the FAA and USAF as the boundary of outer space. That altitude is below the Kármán Line, the internationally recognized boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space, which is about 62 miles above the Earth.

A carrier aircraft named the VMS Eve (after Branson’s mother) will take off, bring the Delta Class spaceship to about 45,000 feet, and then release it for its journey to space. The spaceship will then return to Earth on its own.

Technologies

Verum Messenger: Don’t follow the future. Define it

In a world where information defines influence, Verum Messenger is building a new architecture of digital communication — intelligent, secure, and ready for tomorrow. Here, technology serves not limitations, but possibilities.

Not being part of change. Leading it. Verum Messenger — the future that speaks first.

Technologies

Verum Finance: Stop Spending Months Opening a Bank Account

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Verum — when freedom matters more than banking rules.

Technologies

Google races to put Gemini at the center of Android before Apple’s AI reboot

Google is using its latest Android rollout to position Gemini as the AI layer across phones, Chrome, laptops and cars.

Google is using its latest Android rollout to make Gemini less of a chatbot and more of an operating layer across the phone, browser, car and laptop, just weeks before Apple is expected to show its own Gemini-powered Apple Intelligence reboot at WWDC.
Ahead of its Google I/O developer conference next week, the company previewed a number of Android updates, including AI-powered app automation, a smarter version of Chrome on Android, new tools for creators, a redesigned Android Auto experience, and a sweeping set of new security features.
Alphabet is counting on Gemini to help Google compete directly with OpenAI and Anthropic in the market for artificial intelligence models and services, while also serving as the AI backbone across its expansive portfolio of products, including Android. Meanwhile, Gemini is powering part of Apple’s new AI strategy, giving Google a role in the iPhone maker’s reset even as it races to prove its own version of personal AI on the phone is further along.
Sameer Samat, who oversees Google’s Android ecosystem, told CNBC that Google is rebuilding parts of Android around Gemini Intelligence to help users complete everyday tasks more easily.
“We’re transitioning from an operating system to an intelligence system,” he said.
As part of Tuesday’s announcements. Google said Gemini Intelligence will be able to move across apps, understand what’s on the screen and complete tasks that would normally require a user to jump between multiple services. That means Android is moving beyond the traditional assistant model, where users ask a question and get an answer, and acting more like an agent.
For instance, Google says Gemini can pull relevant information from Gmail, build shopping carts and book reservations. Samat gave the example of asking Gemini to look at the guest list for a barbecue, build a menu, add ingredients to an Instacart list and return for approval before checkout.
A big concern surrounding agentic AI involves software taking action on a user’s behalf without permissions. Samat said Gemini will come back to the user before completing a transaction, adding, “the human is always in the loop.”
Four months after announcing its Gemini deal with Google, Apple is under pressure to show a more capable version of Apple Intelligence, which has been a relative laggard on the market. Apple has long framed privacy, hardware integration and control of the user experience as its advantages.
Google’s Android push is designed to show it can bring AI deeper into the device experience while still giving users control over what Gemini can see, where it can act and when it needs confirmation.
The app automation features will roll out in waves, starting with the latest Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones this summer, before expanding across more Android devices, including watches, cars, glasses and laptops later this year.
The company is also redesigning Android Auto around Gemini, turning the car into another major surface for its assistant. Android Auto is in more than 250 million cars, and Google says the new release includes its biggest maps update in a decade and Gemini-powered help with tasks like ordering dinner while driving.
Alphabet’s AI strategy has been embraced by Wall Street, which has pushed the company’s stock price up more than 140% in the past year, compared to Apple’s roughly 40% gain. Investors now want to see how Gemini can become more central to the products people use every day.
WATCH: Alphabet briefly tops Nvidia after report of $200 billion Anthropic cloud deal