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probably not practical for launchers nor for s/c but maybe for suborbital planes? nice idea anyway ...

Our mission is very simple. We are working towards launching a human being into space. 

Nicholas this is project I mentioned while G&T-ing in Madrid.

Cecil Field becomes the country's eighth licensed commercial spaceport

".... taking at least 50kg of payload into a polar orbit with a minimum altitude of 400km (248 miles), but engineers would aim to get significant additional performance. "We'd be looking at a range from 50 to up to a maximum of 200kg because you'd want to do different sizes of satellite," said Mr Whitehorn."

Juxi are you following this one? any idea on its purpose?

Not that I'm an expert in the field in any way, but there are two things I could think of: 1) possibility of bringing the payload back means that it can collect huge amounts of data which wouldn't be possible to be transferred via radio in reasonable time and/or you can bring back data you don't want to be intercepted by enemy 2) I remember reading somewhere that possibility of re-entry from orbit means you can strike any country without violating the airspace of the neighbouring countries. As the project is now managed by military, a purely civil purpose can be safely ruled out in my opinion.

"Flights into space are limited," said University of Central Florida Associate Professor Joshua Colwell. "This is an excellent opportunity to gather additional data that can only be obtained from these kinds of flights and which is essential for our research to move forward." --> the same was mentioned a few times during the NEOMeX workshop...