What surprisingly bugged me more than the potential climate impact was not feeling the same kind of excitement after seeing passengers in space during Virgin Galactics flight.

Dunno, but I've always felt some deeper sense of wonder when seeing astronauts fly to space or onboard the ISS. The vision to start a company like that aside, space tourists just had to shell out enough cash to go up there. This alone might be an exciting thought for us as a species, but it imho isn't what space travel should be about. It's hard to find any purpose in just shooting rich people to space.