Source: Seattle pi Blogs

Virgin Galactic’s unveiling this week of what promises to be the first manned commercial spaceship may signal the start of rapid development of this new business arena.

“Suborbital velocities outside the friction of the atmosphere bring the entire world within a two-hour flight,” he said. “Spacesports that start as space tourism centers will eventually become regional suborbital hubs.”

“I believe that in within the next five years we will see several companies that are conducting regular and frequent launches up to the edge of space and that will, of course, greatly change how we think about space transportation,” George Nield, the Federal Aviation Administration’s associate administrator for commercial space transportation, told the U.S. House Commercial Space Transportation Subcommittee last week.

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