World's first commercial spaceport
A new chapter in space exploration begins with the opening of Spaceport America - the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport. This offers sub-orbital spaceflights to the paying public.
Costing almost $225 million, the facility is built on 27 square miles (70 km²) of state-owned desert near Upham, an uninhabited part of New Mexico.
Among the various companies involved is Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. Travelling at over 2,600mph (4,200km/h), the spacecraft carry up to six passengers at a time, to a height of approximately 68 miles (110km), using a single hybrid rocket motor. When maximum altitude is reached, the engines are switched off, and the passengers can experience up to six minutes of zero-G whilst looking down on the Earth.
The ships use a feathered re-entry system, feasible due to the low speed of re-entry, and are designed to re-enter the atmosphere at any angle, for maximum safety.
In the next decade, a new generation of ships will be developed capable of reaching much higher orbits. A few years after that, trips around the Moon will become possible.
Initially, the flights are very expensive (around $200,000 each). However, competition between the companies involved will greatly reduce costs, making them affordable to the majority of people later this century.


Above: SpaceShipTwo, in operation from 2011.