In the years since 2009, there has been a lot of talk among space enthusiasts that commercial spaceflight could get people into space soon. But it turned out to be slower going than some expected. Companies sprang up to try and fill the need. Some, like XCOR Aerospace, ended up out of business. Others shifted focus from crewed spaceflight to satellites and scientific payloads. Virgin Galactic itself suffered a major setback when its first spacecraft was destroyed during a test flight in 2014, killing one of its pilots.    

"People have been estimating that we are a year away from space tourism flights for years now," aerospace analyst Bill Ostrove told me in an email. "But with the successful flight, it appears that we really are less than a year away from commercial space flights."