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Space science: Along for the ride

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Reusable commercial rockets will soon be able to take scientists — and tourists — on suborbital spaceflights. Are these vehicles vital research tools, or an expensive dead end?

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Lee Billings is a freelance writer in New York.

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Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference

Commercial Spaceflight Federation

NASA Flight Opportunities programme

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Billings, L. Space science: Along for the ride. Nature 473, 21–23 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/473021a

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