Sub-orbital spaceflight

Grader A: miss

Paid suborbital passenger flights began only in July 2021. By September 2025 Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic flew 116 commercial suborbital passengers in total. By 2026 neither operator flew regularly. This is far below 5% of any population by 2024.

Test: Share of target users (travellers/households): about 116 passengers total 2021-2025, effectively 0%.

• Suborbital Space Passenger Insights (2025-09): 116 suborbital commercial passengers flown July 2021 to September 2025, all by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.
• Suborbital space tourism: Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic pause (2026): By 2026 Blue Origin paused New Shepard for at least two years and Virgin Galactic's next passenger flight slipped to February 2027.

Grader B: miss

Commercial sub-orbital passenger flight started only in 2021 and stayed tiny. Blue Origin flew 86 seats (80 people) on New Shepard by November 2025 and paused tourism flights in January 2026. Virgin Galactic carried 32 people on 12 missions and has not flown since June 2024. Total riders are in the low hundreds, far below 5% of any target market by 2024.

Test: 20% of target users (affluent travellers). Actual: about 110 unique sub-orbital passengers across both operators by 2025; share effectively 0%.

• Blue Origin Completes 36th New Shepard Flight to Space (2025-11): New Shepard has flown 86 people (80 individuals) in total by NS-36.
• New Shepard (Wikipedia) (2026): In January 2026 Blue Origin paused New Shepard tourism launches for two years or more.
• Virgin Galactic delays next commercial spaceflight to 2027 (2025): Virgin Galactic carried 32 people across 12 missions; last flight June 2024; next commercial flight delayed to 2027.