Of all the high-flying tourism ventures spawned by space-obsessed billionaires, Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, offers perhaps the most unconventional approach. It doesn’t use big rockets or gumdrop-shaped capsules. Instead, an airplane takes off with a spacecraft strapped to its wing. The spacecraft, shaped like a plane itself, holds the paying customers and more pilots. When the airplane reaches a certain altitude, it releases the spacecraft. The spacecraft’s pilots then ignite its engine, and the vehicle soars straight up, to the fuzzy boundary that separates us from the rest of the universe, before gliding back down and landing on a runway.

The spaceplane experience is a stark contrast to Blue Origin’s suborbital jaunts and SpaceX’s orbital missions, but Virgin Galactic’s passengers still have a few surreal minutes of weightlessness, and they get to see the planet gleaming against the darkness of space. Those passengers have included the first former Olympian to reach space, as well as the first mother-daughter duo, and, most recently, the first Pakistani.

In the midst of all that, Virgin Galactic clocked a first that raised some eyebrows: The company withheld the passenger list from the public before a takeoff last month, divulging the travelers’ names only after they had landed. The company never publicly explained its preflight secrecy. (Virgin Galactic did not respond to a request for comment.) Yesterday, Virgin Galactic announced its next flight, scheduled for November; the company kept one of the three listed passengers anonymous, saying only that the person is “of Franco-Italian nationality."

Virgin is of course within its rights to withhold passenger names before takeoff. After all, airlines and railroads keep private the names of their customers. But Virgin Galactic’s choice to do so marks a subtle shift—the latest in U.S. spaceflight’s arc from a publicly funded national mission to private tourism. NASA, as a taxpayer-funded organization, has always had to provide the public with launch lists and livestreams. But the age of space tourism raises a host of questions: How much openness do space-tourism companies owe the public? How much privacy do they owe their customers? Before the Virgin flight returned home last month, it operated almost like a privately chartered plane, its movements known to relevant aviation agencies but its passengers’ names undisclosed to the public. Commercial spaceflight and air travel are still far from alike, but in this particular aspect, the space-tourism industry may be drifting toward its private-jet era.

[Read: The new ‘right stuff’ is money and luck]

In practice, the space-tourism industry is barely more than two years old, and it’s “still finding its norms,” says Carissa Christensen, a space consultant and the CEO of BryceTech, an analytics and engineering firm. The first passenger rosters were marquee news in 2021, when Branson and Jeff Bezos were racing to be the first to ride their own spacecraft, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX was working to send a quartet of private astronauts with zero spaceflight experience into orbit.

All three of their companies publicized, and even hyped, the passenger lists, in some cases months in advance. Wally Funk, an octogenarian aviator who had outperformed male candidates in astronaut tests during the 1960s but was kept out of the astronaut corps because she was a woman, flew alongside Bezos. Jared Isaacman, a billionaire businessman, paid for three other people to fly into orbit with him on SpaceX; all of them gave countless interviews before launch. And who can forget the hype ahead of William Shatner’s flight, and the Star Trek star’s unfiltered, emotional remarks after landing?

The rosters became less noteworthy as time went on: The customers were no longer memorable guests who got free rides, but simply very wealthy people who could afford the trips on their own. Last month’s temporarily secret Virgin Galactic fliers included a real-estate investor from Las Vegas, a South African entrepreneur, and a British engineer who founded a company that builds race cars. Michelle Hanlon, a space lawyer and the executive director of the University of Mississippi’s Center for Air and Space Law, told me that she was mildly surprised by Virgin Galactic’s decision to withhold the passengers’ identities before takeoff, but that the decision did not strike her as inappropriate.

“From a paparazzi standpoint, if it’s Ashton Kutcher, the world’s gonna care a little bit more than if it’s Michelle Hanlon,” Hanlon said. (Kutcher did, in fact, purchase a Virgin Galactic ticket in 2012, but he later sold it back to the company after his wife and fellow actor, Mila Kunis, talked him out of going.) And from a legal standpoint, nothing inappropriate occurred, Hanlon said; there are no existing requirements for a private company to disclose passenger names. Space travelers must sign waivers from the Federal Aviation Administration outlining the risks associated with the activity, she said, but the companies they’re flying with are not required to provide the agency with a passenger list.

[Read: Jeff Bezos knows who paid for him to go to space]

Passenger names aren’t the only details of commercial spaceflight that are becoming more opaque. When SpaceX launched its first set of private astronauts, the company shared significantly less live footage of their experience in orbit than they did when NASA astronauts test-drove the capsule a year earlier. During its last two flights, Virgin Galactic decided not to provide a livestream, giving updates on social media instead.

Because there are no regulations, it’s difficult to say when the companies’ right to privacy becomes a concerning level of secrecy. NASA overshares when it comes to its astronauts and their mission, because the public—which funds the agency—expects it. Americans might also expect a good look at SpaceX customers who visit the International Space Station, which relies on billions of dollars of taxpayer money, and where private visitors share meals with government astronauts. But what about other kinds of SpaceX missions, which go into orbit without disembarking at any government-owned facility? The company developed its crewed launch services with significant investment from NASA, so virtually every SpaceX trip indirectly involves government money. That doesn’t necessarily mean SpaceX is obligated to share as the space agency does, even if people on the ground feel that it should.

Another major difference between NASA missions and private ones, of course, is that astronauts are at work, whereas many space tourists are presumably just having fun. Caryn Schenewerk, a consultant who specializes in commercial spaceflight at her firm CS Consulting, told me that she thinks commercial spaceflight will adopt the practices of other forms of adventure tourism. Take skydiving, for example: Schenewerk said that she has signed paperwork granting the skydiving company permission to use footage of her experience for its own purposes. “There’s some expectation of privacy on the individual’s behalf that then has to be actively waived for the company’s benefit,” she said.

The once-anonymous Virgin Galactic passengers on the September flight have since publicly shared their stories, basking in the awe of their experience. Christensen told me that most future tourists will likely do the same. “A big part of the fun is other people knowing that you’ve done it,” she said. Flying to space isn’t exactly something to be modest about: Fewer than 700 people have done it since human beings first achieved the feat, in the early 1960s, and we know all of their names. If Virgin’s new mystery passenger doesn’t reveal their name, they really will make history.

[Read: Seeing Earth from space will change you]

Many spacefarers—the Soviet cosmonauts who inhabited the first space station, the American astronauts who shuttled their way into orbit, the Chinese astronauts living in space right now, all of the people who have flown commercial—have spoken about the transformational wonder of seeing Earth from space, a phenomenon known as the overview effect. They reported that they better understood the reality of our beautiful, fragile planet, and that they felt a duty to share their impressions with people on the ground. Gene Cernan, one of the dozen men who walked on the lunar surface, once said, “If only everyone could relate to the beauty and the purposefulness of it … It wouldn’t bring a utopia to this planet for people to understand it all, but it might make a difference.” In this sense, for a space traveler to remain unknown forever would be a sort of anti–overview effect: Just as they may have the right to request some privacy, they have no obligation to bring the transcendent power of their journey back to Earth.

Three years ago, two NASA astronauts made a historic flight on a new SpaceX astronaut capsule. Ahead of the mission, I asked NASA what Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken were going to have for breakfast on the morning of the launch. It was a question with a long tradition in spacefaring history: During the Apollo days, the public was privy to the final Earth-bound meals of history-making astronauts. NASA officials balked, saying they couldn’t divulge that information for privacy reasons. But on the day of the launch, Hurley, as if to sate the space press corps, posted a picture of his steak and eggs on Twitter (as it was still known then).

Hurley and Behnken’s preflight hours seemed like fair game; after all, these men were government employees, doing their job on their assigned mission. But future passengers may decide that we have no business knowing their breakfast order—or even their name.

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The ongoing drama over electing a speaker of the House is not about governance. It’s about giving Republican voters the drama-filled reality show they voted for and want to see—even at the expense of the country.

First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:

Self-checkout is a failed experiment. What conservatives misunderstand about radicalism at universities Hezbollah watches and waits. Four misconceptions about the war in Gaza

What the Voters Wanted

Like many Americans, I have been both fascinated and horrified by the inability of the Republican majority to elect a new speaker of the House. I admit to watching the votes like I’m rubbernecking at a car wreck, but perhaps that’s not a good analogy, because I at least feel pity for the victims of a traffic accident. What’s happening in the House is more like watching a group of obnoxious (and not very bright) hot-rodders playing chicken and smashing their cars into one another over and over.

As I watch all of this Republican infighting, I wonder, as I often do, about GOP voters. What is it that they think will happen if Jim Jordan becomes speaker? Jordan has been in Congress for 16 years, and he has almost nothing to show for it. He’s never originated any successful legislation, never whipped votes, never accomplished anything except for appearing on Fox and serving up rancid red meat to his Ohio constituents and MAGA allies.

And therefore, as speaker, he would … what? Order up more impeachments, perhaps of Biden-administration officials? Shut down the government? Pound the gavel and prattle on for hours in his never-take-a-breath style? (Jordan’s the kind of guy who probably would have interrupted the Sermon on the Mount.) Perhaps from a position of greater power, he could more effectively assist Donald Trump in undermining yet another election in 2024.

Maybe that’s why Trump endorsed him for speaker.

Is that what Republican voters really want? Apparently so; as my friend Sarah Longwell, the founder of the anti-Trump Republican Accountability Project, told my Atlantic colleague Ronald Brownstein, “Even if he doesn’t make it, because the majorities are so slim, you can’t argue that Jim Jordan doesn’t represent the median Republican today.”

And that is the part we tend to overlook when we’re focused on the drama inside the Capitol: The disorder in the GOP caucus is not some accident or glitch triggered by a handful of reprobates, but rather a direct result of choices by voters. The House is a mess because enough Republican voters want it to be a mess.

This accusation might seem unfair: Jordan is just one member from a super-red (and blatantly gerrymandered) district, and many of his Republican colleagues are furious about this humiliating bungle. But right-wing voters have shown no inclination to punish people such as Matt Gaetz and other political vandals; indeed, Gaetz and his like-minded colleagues are rapidly becoming folk heroes in the Republican Party.

It’s not much consolation to recognize that the Republicans are now the party their voters want them to be. Their antics endanger us all, especially during multiple international crises when the United States needs to be unified and effective both at home and abroad. But to treat the GOP as merely dysfunctional is worse than a distraction; it is a fundamental error that offers the false hope that a mature and governing majority is somehow within reach, if only Jordan or Gaetz would get out of the way.

The real problem is that many Republican voters have now completely internalized the cynicism of Trump and the GOP opportunists around him, and they draw no connection between national politics and the ongoing health and security of the United States. These voters rely on everyone else (including those Americans they deride as the “deep state”) to keep the country functioning. They vote for masters of performative nonsense, such as Jordan and Gaetz, who do nothing for the “forgotten” working families in the places that the MAGA movement claims have been left behind by the rest of us.

The twists and turns of the Trump years, in which many elected Republicans became big spenders, critics of law enforcement, and apologists for the Kremlin, illustrated that MAGA voters have almost no interest in anything like conservatism, or even in coherent policy. Instead, they want to indulge resentments and grievances that have little to do with government and everything to do with boredom and dissatisfaction in their own lives. A few years ago, I wrote a book about how such voters project that anger and sourness onto everything around them. Their ennui spurs their desire to see chaos, so they argue that the existing order needs to be shaken up, or burned down, or defunded.

They think this way because they have never had to live under a government that has actually been shaken up, burned down, or defunded. Jordan and his colleagues (who have made entire careers out of encouraging such nihilism) are poor leaders but good politicians. They deliver what their voters really want: show trials and passion plays, and, mostly, to see other people unsettled and angry. These citizens vote not for determined legislators with complicated plans—that stuff is just so boring—but for entertaining rogues who can liven up the Fox prime-time hours.

Years ago, I thought that Republican voters would demand changes from the party if the GOP lost enough elections. But even losses don’t seem to matter in a party that is clearly more comfortable with performance art centered on imaginary grievances than with actual governing. The shenanigans of the past two weeks might even cost the Republicans control of the House in the next election—that’s one reason Jordan’s colleagues are trying to stop him—but that political collapse might not matter to right-wing voters. They’ll get another episode of their favorite show—and for them, maybe that’s enough.

Related:

The threat to democracy is coming from inside the U.S. House. Jim Jordan could have a long fight ahead.

Today’s News

President Joe Biden visited Tel Aviv and backed Israel’s claims that it had no involvement in the al-Ahli Arab Hospital attack in Gaza City. A 4.2-magnitude earthquake struck Northern California, affecting Sacramento County and sections of the Bay Area. The Venezuelan government and opposition party have struck a deal to work toward fairer elections in 2024.

Dispatches

The Weekly Planet: The insurance industry’s climate math is brutal, Zoë Schlanger writes. Sometimes, an uninsurable town can become uninhabitable.

Explore all of our newsletters here.

Evening Read

Courtesy of Matthew Cox / The Atlantic

The Con Man Who Became a True-Crime Writer

By Rachel Monroe

Last April, I received an odd email from a man named Matthew Cox. “I am an inmate at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Florida,” he wrote. “I’m also a true crime writer.” He had one year left on his sentence and was “attempting to develop a body of work that will allow me to exit prison with a new career.” He included a story about a fellow inmate who’d been ensnared in a complicated currency-trading scam, hoping that I’d write about it for The Atlantic.

“This is fascinating,” I replied. I didn’t mean the currency-trading scam, which was too procedural for my tastes, but Cox’s own trajectory. He described himself as “an infamous con man writing his fellow inmates’ true crime stories while immersed in federal prison.” I’d never had a possible subject pitch his own tale so aptly. I wasn’t entirely sure that was a good thing.

Read the full article.

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Culture Break

Illustration by Ben Kothe. Source: Getty.

Read. In Wellness, Nathan Hill recounts a love story, but also much, much more.

Watch. Wes Anderson’s renditions of Roald Dahl’s short stories (streaming on Netflix) ask us to think actively—even skeptically—about what we’re seeing.

Play our daily crossword.

P.S.

Lately, as I’ve been indulging my habit of watching vintage television from the 1960s and ’70s, I’ve noticed how often I encounter William Windom. He was a mainstay of my childhood television days, and when I mentioned him on social media, I realized how many folks out there remember him as fondly as I do. He was a remarkable character actor (the other night, I saw him on both Mannix and Barney Miller), and he even brought some gravitas as the president in Escape From the Planet of the Apes. Many of us of a certain age, however, remember his starring role in My World and Welcome to It, based on the humor and cartoons of James Thurber, which ran for only one season yet is still beloved by many.

But I will always have a soft spot for Windom because of two roles. One, famous among Star Trek nerds like me, was his 1967 turn as Commodore Matt Decker, the tormented Starfleet officer who loses his ship and crew to an alien doomsday machine. He was also the star of one of Night Gallery’s best stories, a 1971 segment titled “They’re Tearing Down Tim Riley’s Bar,” about a man facing loss and nostalgia as he enters middle age. “Tim Riley’s Bar,” written by Rod Serling, was a different kind of episode for Night Gallery, and it was nominated for an Emmy.

Movie stars are great, but give me a solid character actor like Windom any day.

— Tom

Katherine Hu contributed to this newsletter.

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