Suborbital rocketry can be useful. Much early rocket science involved "sounding rockets", which were capable of going above (very nearly all of) the Earths' atmosphere, as well as serving as testbed platforms for rocket-surgery-related systems (launch, recovery, plumbing, guidance, etc.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounding_rocket

The delta-v differential between sub-orbital and orbital is tremendous, though.