By Matthew Field

Friends, family and crew gathered on the runway at Spaceport America in Nevada last Thursday to watch Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity glide up through the clear skies 55-miles to the edge of space.

The flight carried the youngest woman to have gone to space, 18-year-old Aberdeen University student Anastatia Mayers. Joe Goodwin, the 80-year-old former British Olympian who paid for his spot in 2005, was also on board.

It marked the first Virgin Galactic flight to carry tourists, rather than scientists or company crew, into space.

Among those watching from the ground was Michael Colglazier, the 56-year-old former Disney executive hired by Sir Richard Branson to turn space into the theme park for the wealthy.

Getting amateur astronauts into space is the culmination of a two decade journey for Virgin Galactic and its founder and long-time bankroller Sir Richard Branson. The project has cost billions of dollars to get off the ground and been beset by years of delay and disaster.

Colglazier was brought in three years ago to help commercialise the business after it finally escaped its long, difficult development process.

Thursday’s flight was “an incredibly good day,” Colglazier told The Sunday Telegraph.

Prior to Virgin Galactic, Colglazier spent three decades at Disney culminating in running the company’s international theme park business.

From the outside, the appointment seemed unusual.

On joining the business in 2020, one analyst joked that Colglazier was taking on “a totally new kind of Space Mountain”, in reference to the Disneyland roller coaster ride. Colglazier replied: “Space Mountain is actually my favourite attraction.”

Speaking to The Telegraph, Colglazier’s vision for Virgin Galactic suggests there is more in common between the two businesses than you may think. The heart of both is keeping tourists happy.

“We are here to create an experience that carries out over multiple years, and carries on for the rest of your life,” he says.

For Colglazier, a Virgin Galactic flight should be about more than just the five minutes of weightlessness tourists enjoy while high above earth.

The sweeping, futuristic design for its Spaceport America base demonstrates this ambition. The port offers visitors a panorama of the landing strip and mountains through vast elliptical windows. The whole building extends upwards, like a runway into the sky.

The space port was designed by star architect firm Foster + Partners, which helped Apple build its retail stores and created The Gherkin tower in London.

Virgin Galactic’s ultimate goal is to “provide powerfully meaningful experiences” with a “multiyear journey that culminates in a week at our spaceport”, Colglazier says.

The company has hired several other former Disney executives, including one of its leading “imagineers”, John Rohde, to work on Virgin Galactic’s hospitality experience.

Astronauts who stay at the spaceport are able to bring several guests or family to the retreat. The company promises “all-inclusive, luxury astronaut accommodations”, while guests get special tours and trips.

After the flight, astronauts are presented with their astronaut “wings” in a formal ceremony: a badge signifying they have been more than 50 miles into the atmosphere.

Customers are also given “lifelong membership” to a club of former Virgin Galactic passengers who are offered tickets to exclusive events where they can reminisce about space.

Colglazier says: “We are not here to take you up and down so you can grab a selfie.”

Ultimately, however, the biggest selling point is seeing the earth from space.

“You are so much more connected to everything,” Mayers, who won a charity competition to secure the $450,000 ticket, said after last week’s flight. “You felt part of the universe, a part of earth, I am so starstruck.”

If Colglazier and Sir Richard’s bet pays off, Spaceport America could become a kind of Disneyland for the ultra wealthy.

A berth on its rockets costs $450,000, putting it in league with other exclusive experiences such as deep sea expeditions to visit the wreck of the Titanic.

Virgin Galactic now plans to launch a mission every month. Each trip can hold three tourists and the company currently has a backlog of around 800 budding astronauts, suggesting it has enough demand to run flights for years to come.

Sir Richard is not the only one betting on space tourism: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is also offering to blast the wealthy into orbit.

Sir Richard narrowly beat Bezos in the race to put a billionaire in space back in 2021. Since then, Blue Origin has gained ground and completed six crewed tourist missions. However, its New Shepard rocket has been grounded since September last year.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has offered a handful of charter flights, taking three private flyers into space for $55m in 2022, although it is largely focused on satellite launches and an upcoming Moon mission for NASA.

Colglazier says Virgin Galactic is now working on developing a new production line and its next generation spacecraft, the Delta, which will be cheaper and able to fly multiple missions per month. It is hoped the craft will be ready by 2026.

The chief executive also has a mission to lift the company’s share price, which is down 94pc from its peak two years ago. Colglazier will hope it can defy gravity like Virgin Galactic’s passengers.

“I am still up there,” Keisha Schahaff, who won a ticket on last week’s flight from a philanthropic auction run by Space for Humanity, said on Thursday night. “I am not here yet. It is amazing you can land so smoothly on the runway coming back down from space. It really was the best ride ever.”