Rocket Racing, Inc. and Armadillo Aerospace

The Rocket Racing League is teaming up with a private aerospace company and the state of New Mexico to build a new fleet of suborbital spacecraft designed to give space tourists a view of the Earth unlike any other.

Passengers would be surrounded in a clear, bubble-like shell that gives a panoramic, 360-degree view of Earth and space, rather than be limited by the round window portals offered by other private spaceflight efforts, the league announced Friday.

The racing league accounted the plan with New Mexico and the Mesquite, Texas-based firm Armadillo Aerospace today during the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge in Las Cruces, NM, where the private space shots would blast off from Spaceport America.

Under the joint venture, Armadillo Aerospace and the racing league would build a fleet of vertical launch and landing spacecraft capable of flying two passengers on suborbital spaceflights.

Tickets will cost about $100,000, about half that set for rides on billionaire Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic spaceliners, league officials said. Passengers would likely launch into suborbital space about 62 miles (100 km) above Earth and experience at least a few minutes of weightlessness before beginning their descent under the plan.