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  Virgin Galactic revealed its newest spaceship this week. [credit:
  Virgin Galactic ]

Two developments this week show how US companies are making slow but steady progress toward ushering in an era of space tourism.

On Tuesday, Virgin Galactic released images of its next-generation suborbital space plane. A few hours later, the two final crew members of an all-private mission aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft were publicly named. None of this is happening as quickly as we might hope, but we are slowly moving toward the day when more and more “regular” people could go into space.

First we’ll look at the specifics of these announcements. Then we’ll discuss their significance.