Mr Sirangelo emphasised SNC's stepwise approach to getting into space, with the first launches going only suborbital (a short hop above the atmosphere) followed eventually by fully orbital sorties.
There is little doubt that Branson, the founder of multiple companies, including a suborbital spaceflight company, Virgin Galactic, is a visionary.
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And last year, European aerospace giant EADS announced plans for its Astrium space division to develop a line of suborbital jets to satisfy a space tourism market that it predicts could grow to as many as 15, 000 passengers a year by 2020.
Amazon's Jeff Bezos is developing a suborbital vehicle at his company Blue Origin.
More than 70% surveyed would spend two weeks or less on a suborbital tourism flight and 88% were interested in spacewalking.
American astronaut Alan Shepard made a suborbital flight later that year, and John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth in 1962.
Virgin's Richard Branson has started Virgin Galactic in an attempt to sell suborbital trips to ordinary citizens, and Amazon.com 's JeffBezosJeff Bezos has started a company called Blue Origin to create a private suborbital space vehicle.
Nevertheless, studies by the Futron Corporation, an aerospace consultancy, suggest that suborbital space travel is a promising market.
The FAA's role in suborbital spaceflight safety was a key sticking point: Under the terms of the legislation, the FAA would regulate the industry over the next eight years primarily to protect the uninvolved public and the public interest.
Similar commercial spaceports have been set up in New Mexico, where Virgin Galactic, an offshoot of Richard Branson's Virgin Group, plans to fly a fleet of suborbital passenger spaceships, as well as Alaska, Virginia and California.
Stern also chairs the Commercial Spaceflight Federation's Suborbital Applications Researchers Group and is a former NASA associate administrator for science.
Last year, the world's first space tourist, Dennis Tito, made a plea to Congress that as a potential investor in suborbital craft he was not looking to government for funding, technology, tax credits or loan guarantees.
Companies preparing for commercial suborbital passenger service include Virgin Galactic, a U.S.-based offshoot of Branson's Virgin Group of London, and XCOR Aerospace of Mojave, Calif.
Jeff Greason, the president of XCOR Aerospace, a company that makes rocket engines for suborbital craft, worries that the X Prize, with its attached conditions, may not in practice lead to the right sort of craft being built.
The regulations will apply specifically to reusable suborbital rockets, the kind that space adventure companies such as Virgin Galactic will use to send people for a thrill ride into outer space.
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