The creator of SpaceShipOne, the first commercial craft to transport humans into space, Burt Rutan, called the opening of the agency a "historic moment" heralding an era of mass space tourism.
The space ride, which will be launched from a pad to be built in New Mexico, will cost $200,000 per person and will take a maximum of eight passengers.
The founder of Virgin Galactic, British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson said: "The designs of both the mothership and the new spaceship are absolutely beautiful and surpass any expectations for the future of commercial spaceflight that we had when first registering the name Virgin Galactic in 1999."
However, Rutan said that safety levels of the new spaceships would not be those of modern passenger airliners, but "the risk must nonetheless be brought to an acceptable level for the customers to come."
Currently, Russia is the only country which provides space flights for tourists from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan. The flight, which lasts around a week, costs around $30 million. All flights are fully booked until 2009.
