Viodi reports on technology that bridges distances—whether that’s bringing fiber to a rural community or new autonomous mobility solutions. At CES 2026, the definition of “distance” gets pushed to the absolute limit. We caught up with Kei Shimada, CEO of Narravity, who is looking past these terrestrial networks and focusing squarely on the next major consumer market: space.

As the commercial space industry matures, a fascinating question emerges. We know exactly how clothes, electronics, and human bodies work on Earth. But what happens when ordinary people—not highly trained astronauts—start going to space in the next decade?

As Kei put it during our interview, “You’re not going to be wearing your skinny jeans. You’re not going to be wearing your tight sports shoes… your body fluids will flux and they will react differently from a gravity to a microgravity environment.”

Democratizing Microgravity R&D

Right now, simulating a true microgravity environment for product development down on Earth is nearly impossible. To solve this, Narravity is building an autonomous microgravity lab.

What’s clever about their approach is its flexibility. They aren’t building an entire satellite from scratch; they are building an experiment lab designed to sit inside an existing satellite bus. This makes them agnostic to the orbit—whether it’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) or Medium Earth Orbit—allowing apparel companies, civil engineers, and consumer electronics brands to affordably test how their products behave in space.

But Narravity’s long-term vision is even more practical. Rocket launches are still expensive, subject to weather delays, and orbit misses. By sending these labs up now, Narravity plans to harvest vast amounts of data over the next 5 to 10 years. Ultimately, they hope to use that proprietary data to accurately replicate microgravity environments on Earth, saving companies the hassle of launching their prototypes into orbit in the first place.

The 2030s: A New Demographic of Space Tourists

If you think consumer products for space are a niche market, Narravity’s parent company, Japan’s Innovative Space Carrier (ISC), has the data to prove otherwise.

While established players like Virgin Galactic have hundreds of ultra-wealthy customers on waiting lists for $450,000 tickets, ISC is taking a radically different approach to build a massive community of future travelers. They have opened an “Advance Reservation Notification” list for a future reusable rocket system, and they already have 9,000 people signed up.

The demographics of this list are eye-opening:

• The median age is in the 40s.
• The majority are women. * Most have absolutely no space or aerospace background.

These aren’t thrill-seekers looking to endure grueling centrifuge training. They are everyday people who want to look out a big window while wearing comfortable, normal clothes. To accommodate this, ISC is replacing traditional centrifuge facilities with a gamified, at-home VR training program to prepare passengers for the 3G forces of launch.

More importantly, ISC’s goal is to make space as accessible as overseas travel by the 2030s, featuring disruptive, tiered, estimated pricing:

• Economy: ~$20,000 (¥3,000,000)
• Business: ~$54,000 (¥8,000,000)
• First Class: ~$100,000 (¥15,000,000)

Where the Space Sector is Heading in the Next Decade

Narravity’s vision aligns perfectly with the massive shifts we are witnessing in the aerospace sector today. We are transitioning from an era dominated by government space agencies into a fully commercialized Low Earth Orbit economy.

Recent milestones—like the rapid development and successful flights of heavy-lift reusable rockets like SpaceX’s Starship—are aggressively driving down the cost per kilogram to orbit. Simultaneously, private companies are actively developing commercial space stations to eventually replace the aging International Space Station.

Over the next decade, as launch costs plummet and orbital destinations multiply, space will cease to be just for research and government operations. It will become a consumer destination.

As mentioned in the above video, the Apollo missions brought us everyday innovations like Tang. But as Star Trek reminded us, space is the final frontier. To truly conquer it, we have to close the gap between astronauts and everyday people. Narravity is doing exactly that, ensuring that when the average consumer finally buys that economy ticket to orbit, the products they rely on are ready for the ride.

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[Note: the above text was directed and edited by the author, but written by Google’s Gemini].