Virgin Galactic completes its first-ever human spaceflight: space tourism is near

Welcome to the Hotel Starry-fornia... such a lovely space. Virgin Galactic stock soared 28% yesterday, following the space tourism company's successful spaceflight test over the weekend. ICYMI: Virgin's trying to vacation-ify space travel. Think: restaurant bookings on the International Space Station (we're thinking spaghetti Apollo-gnese).

• Milestone #1: The launch was the first of four remaining spaceflight tests before Virgin starts flying commercial customers — aka: space tourists.
• Milestone #2: New Mexico became the third US state to launch humans into space. Virgin owner Richard Branson shared the love with NM.

One small step for man... One giant leap for Virgin's "Future Astronauts," as it calls prospective customers. The flight was a critical step for Virgin's space tourism program, which aims to launch early next year. Virgin's mission is to become the "Spaceline for Earth." It hates that only 600 humans have left Earth’s atmosphere, and wants to "open space to everybody." But Richard Branson has some intergalactic competition from other famous billionaire entrepreneurs (it's a theme with space companies)....

• SpaceX: Last year, Elon Musk's rocket company sent NASA astronauts into orbit with a private spacecraft for the first time. In April, SpaceX won a $2.9B NASA contract to build a lunar landing system, beating Blue Origin.
• Blue Origin: This week, a bid to be the first passenger with Jeff Bezos' spacecraft company hit a whopping $2.8M. The 11-minute crewed flight is set to launch on July 20.