Space Tourism Company Opens Support Group For $600,000 Ticket Holders Still Stuck On Earth

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, NM — Orbital tourism company Apex Horizon confirmed Tuesday that it has started a twice-weekly support group for the 740 customers who paid up to $600,000 for a seat on a suborbital flight the company has now delayed five separate times, giving members a place to sit in a circle and talk about everything except the money.

"We realized a lot of our future astronauts were going through this alone," said Apex Horizon's head of customer experience, Denise Fallbrook, who described the group as "a judgment-free space to process the grief of not yet going to space." Sessions are held in a hangar next to the spacecraft mock-up, which members are permitted to sit inside for ninety seconds at the end of each meeting. Fallbrook called this "the emotional core of the pre-flight journey" and asked that attendees not touch the windows.

Member Carl Deets, 61, a retired orthodontist who put down his deposit in 2019, said the group has helped him stop telling people the flight is "basically happening this year." He now describes himself to neighbors as "pre-astronaut," a title Apex Horizon trademarked in March and prints on member lanyards along with a countdown clock that the company quietly resets rather than lets hit zero. "I've worn the flight suit to three different Rotary Club meetings," Deets said. "It fits better than it used to, which the group also helped with."

An internal Apex Horizon survey obtained by this publication found that 84 percent of ticket holders now rate "anticipating the flight" as more meaningful than the flight itself would be, and that 61 percent would feel a specific, nameable disappointment if the rocket actually left the ground, ending the waiting period they've built an identity around. The company's behavioral consultant, Dr. Priya Anand, called this "a remarkably stable psychological equilibrium" and recommended against disrupting it with an actual launch date.

Group facilitator and certified astronautical loss specialist Marla Oyelaran said the hardest part of her job is managing members who threaten to ask for refunds. "I remind them that a refund would mean admitting this was always just a very expensive waiting room," Oyelaran said. "Nobody wants to be the first to say that out loud." She said three members have asked to be buried in their flight suits regardless of whether they ever use them for their intended purpose.

Apex Horizon ended Tuesday's meeting by announcing a sixth delay, to 2029, and a new premium support tier that costs an additional $4,000 a year. Company representatives described enrollment in the new tier as "very strong." At press time, the support group itself had developed a waitlist.