It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s … a billionaire heading to the stars.

After over a decadelong hiatus, those with the time and money to burn on rocket fuel again took to the skies and beyond as space tourists and commercial astronauts. Since the last private explorer came down from a 12-day mission in 2009, there were no more private explorers until the “billionaire space race” missions launched in 2021. The five missions were in the works for years and envisioned by entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk of SpaceX, Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin, and Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic.