Mr King must now come up with a Plan B, said Guy Anderson, senior analyst at defence consultants IHS Jane's.

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But something that had seemed mundane when he was a kid, space travel, seemed out of reach, until he met a guy named Eric Anderson who was trying to establish a private space travel company.

NPR: Millionaire Follows Dad's Footsteps �� Into Space

"This was a guy who used to be my friend, who decimated me, " Andreu told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday night.

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