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YOU need the right stuff to reach for the stars. And that includes a permit. Now one plucky group of privateers has both.

The US Federal Aviation Administration has granted the California company Scaled Composites the first ever licence for a privately financed suborbital rocket designed to carry passengers. That makes Scaled Composites the front runner in the race to claim the $10 million X Prize, which will go to the first individual or private company to build a reusable spacecraft capable of carrying three people to an altitude of 100 kilometres and back. They then have to repeat the…

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