Two companies promising routine suborbital access have signed the first-ever contracts to ferry researchers beyond the Earth’s limb and into space.

Virgin Galactic, a suborbital-spaceflight company that’s building a spaceport in New Mexico, will fly at least two Southwest Research Institute researchers and their experiments into space at a cost of $200,000 per person. The institution has also reached a deal with XCOR Aerospace for six researcher seats on suborbital flights at $100,000 each.

“No one has ever offered any contracts to fly scientific researchers into suborbital space before,” sai...