Space tourism got a boost – literally – in June when Virgin Galactic launched four paying customers on an hourlong journey that featured a bird’s-eye view of planet Earth and three minutes of near-weightlessness.

“I will need much more time to try and process what just happened,” said Turkish researcher and passenger Tuva Atasever, in a post-flight press conference. “It’s not something you can describe with adjectives.”

Wanna-be astronauts the world over can hope for similar thrills in coming years, as Virgin Galactic ramps up testing of components of its next-generation Delta Class spacecraft at a new facility in Irvine. The firm’s expansion is yet another sign of Irvine’s fast-growing role as an aerospace hub.

‘Fertile ground for recruiting’

Over the past decade, several other major firms, including SpaceX, one of Virgin Galactic’s chief competitors; Terran Orbital, the world’s leading provider of nano- and microsatellites; Turion Space, which makes commercial satellites that track and remove space debris; and the Finnish satellite-maker Iceye have all set up shop and expanded operations here. They’re manufacturing and testing spacecraft and even developing flying taxis while taking advantage of one of the nation’s best-educated labor pools and a flourishing high-tech ecosystem. In the process, they’re putting Irvine on the cutting edge of a thriving global industry, valued at as much as $856 billion.

“The Irvine area is very fertile ground for recruiting,” said Steve Justice, Virgin Galactic’s vice president of spaceline programs and engineering, who said the company is seeking to develop a steady pipeline of workers, from graduate students with technical degrees to mid-career engineers.

“It also helps retain talent with its spectacular weather and great ambiance for professionals, be they single or with families,” he said.

Virgin Galactic doubled its employees in 2022 when it moved its headquarters near Irvine. Its new facility, in the Hubble Industrial Park, will test components of the Delta spaceships scheduled to replace the VSS Unity model that made its final flight in June. Final assembly of the Delta craft will take place in Phoenix.

Ready to reach for the stars?

Virgin Galactic has a waiting list of some 700 people ready to pay $450,000 for the brief space voyage but has paused new flights until the Delta craft are ready. It plans to resume the trips in 2026, after which the price will increase to $600,000. (SpaceX’s price tag for a longer, deeper journey into space is estimated at $55 million.) The new craft should tackle that waitlist fairly quickly, with room for six passengers and flying up to three times a week for a total of 125 missions a year.

“The new Delta Class of spaceship will be wonderful,” the company’s founder, British entrepreneur Richard Branson, has said. “It will be like building aeroplanes so we can build one after the other, after the other, and, in time, start bringing the prices down and enabling more people to go to space.”

“The Irvine area is very fertile ground for recruiting. It also helps retain talent with its spectacular weather and great ambiance for professionals, be they single or with families.”

Steve Justice, Virgin Galactic’s vice president of spaceline programs and engineering

Besides Atasever and two pilots, travelers in June included an Israeli real estate developer, an Italian hotel executive and a California SpaceX engineer.

Hundreds of spectators, including Branson, gathered at Spaceport America, near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, to watch the spaceship VSS Unity attached to a twin-fuselage mothership, VMS Eve, fly out of sight. The two craft separated at 45,000 feet, blasting the first-time astronauts to an altitude of roughly 55 miles, just beyond NASA’s definition of space.