Japan Plans 60-Minute Spaceflights From Tokyo To New York For $657,000 Per Ticket
by
Aaron Leong
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Wednesday, October 29, 2025, 10:46 AM EDT
13-hour flights between Tokyo and New York may soon be relegated to history books, as a major Japanese travel agency announced plans to launch a point-to-point transport service that could connect the two cities in just 60 minutes via outer space. The audacious plan (set to launch in the 2030s) comes from a partnership between the Nippon Travel Agency Co. and Innovative Space Carrier Inc., a Tokyo-based startup focused on developing reusable rockets. If this venture ever takes off, you're going to need deep pockets: the ticket price for this suborbital slingshot is expected to be a cool 100 million yen (approximately $657,000) for a round trip.
Central to the success of this commute is the reusable transport vehicle, which will launch from an offshore site and be capable of linking virtually any two points on Earth within an hour by taking a high-altitude shortcut through space. So far, the announcement has been met with a mix of public excitement and bewilderment. Nippon Travel President Keigo Yoshida is confident in the vision, stating that the business is intended as a new starting point "to connect space travel and tourism".
Nippon Travel Agency Co. President Keigo Yoshida (left) and Kojiro Hatada, president of the Tokyo-based startup Innovative Space Carrier Inc. (Credit: Kyodo News)
Nippon Travel Agency's proposal represents a monumental step up from current commercial space tourism, which is largely limited to short, suborbital hops, such as those offered by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, or ultra-expensive orbital missions to the ISS. While those journeys focus on the experience of weightlessness and viewing Earth from above (and sometimes scientific reasons as well), the project is centered on radically redefining global logistics and transportation. Innovative Space Carrier's reusable rocket is definitely key to the economic model, as it aims to significantly reduce operational costs and enable repeated use.
Apparently, there are other less intensive forms of space tourism currently being explored in Japan, such as startup Iwaya Giken's commercial space-viewing balloon flights, which will ascend to 15 miles (25 kilometers) above the Earth. Though initially priced at around $180,000, that company also plans to drive the cost down to a fraction of that.
For the Tokyo-New York space carrier, however, the focus is speed. If successful, the hour-long journey will not only rewrite the flight time for international travelers but will also offer a glimpse into the future of how cargo, and even general business, is conducted across continents.
