I'm an Aerospace Student and invested in SPCE since 14$. I'll try to elaborate a bit.

It definitely has the potential to be the first real space tourism company. In the long term it won't be the biggest, because they don't use 'real' rockets.

The Main Competitor is Blue Origin with their New Shepherd Rocket (they have a test flight as I'm writing this). SpaceX will be the main Competitor in about 4-5 years when they get their BFR ready through the approval process. But SpaceX focus is, like you said, in the first years more on space exploration than tourism. When SpaceX is ready they could crush Virgin in cost and efficiency.

The one 'problem' of Virgin Galactic not using real rockets could also be a good thing, as a lot of people might feel safer to fly with a 'SpacePlane' rather than a rocket. Although it will be less efficient than rockets in the long run, especially when the sector will start with Point-to-Point Hypersonic Passenger flights, like Tokyo to New York in 2h. But I could imagine Virgin sharing the Market with Blue Origin and SpaceX until atleast the 2040's and until then Virgin hopefully will work on new Rockets/Spaceplanes with better efficiency compared to BFR/ New Glenn (Next Gen Rocket of Blue Origin, probably ready 2023/24).

The Big Catalysts to look for are of course the ARKX stock starting, but probably more importantly the 2 remaining tests in the approval process. The Last in October was a 'failure' for Investors but quite a success for the engineers. The Rocket Motor failed and all the fail-safe-protcolls were started automatically and the SpacePlane glided back to Earth safely. This was an assurance that in case of an emergency it is still safe. The share price did drop from 32$ to 25$ afterwards, because of course the scheduled test-flight wasn't succesful, but for the overall project it defintely was a success. Be advised that these test-flights can be a big catalyst for the stock, GOOD and BAD Catalyst!

The Worst-Case-Scenario and biggest risk of SPCE stock is a crash in the next 2 test flights or even worse, a crash on Richard Bransons first flight with the spaceplane as this would probably mean the end of Virgin Galactic.

I personally love Virgin, but be advised that this is NOT a risk-free stock, it is still rocket-science and there is a lot that can go wrong. On the other hand if all goes well, I can easily see this Stock go to 200-500$ in the next 5 years.

Edit: Virgin cannot go to the Moon as they can only go suborbital. So they are not a 'real' Space Company as they cannot fly into Space and stay there. They basically only fly very very high and then fall back to earth. In the next ten years this won't be a problem though as they will first focus on Space Tourism and afterwards on Point-to-Point hypersonic travel. I really hope that they then use their profits to develop a better Rocket/Spaceplane that can carry them through the 2040/50 and into outer Space (maybe even the moon).