Have you got £15 million to spare? There
have been two space tourists so far: 61-year-old American businessman
Dennis Tito paid to go into space on a Russian space vessel. Mark
Shuttleworth the South African business tycoon has just finished his
week's training and is set to become the world's second
paying space traveller when he visits the International Space Station
aboard a Russian ship in April.

Up until now, NASA has opposed private individuals
paying to go into space. Until now, that is. NASA has now published a
set of rules which all potential space travellers must meet before
being allowed into a spacecraft.

NASA's chief astronaut, Charles Precourt, who
helped draw up the rules, said: 'We don't want to embarrass
our space partners by having [a tourist] who would be so
controversial that it would be an insult to the other partners to fly
them because of some behavioural background that was considered
distasteful.”