Chinese Tourist set for Sub Orbital Flight

Jiang Fang from China has paid $100,000 to become the country's first space tourist, and is set blast off on a sub-orbital mission in 2007.

This is a far cry from the $20 million paid by Tito, Shuttleworth and Olsen for an orbital flight, but then again Jiang will only be making a 90 minute sub-orbital flight which will peak at an altitude of 62 miles.

"A new hero is created when a spaceflight is launched," said Space Adventures president Eric Anderson as quoted by the China Daily. "I want to create more private space-travel heroes in China."

Jiang is president of Hong Kong Space Travel Ltd, the Chinese agent for Anderson's firm, which was set up by former US astronauts to book commercial space travel. He said he had always wanted to experience zero-gravity.

"I want to experience weightlessness and explore the wonders of space," he said. It is not clear where the flight would depart from but my guess is that it would be from the United States. Interest in space travel has boomed in China since it launched its first manned mission in 2003. Its second manned flight, Shenzhou VI, carried two astronauts around the earth for five days before landing safely on Monday.

(Photo- Jiang Fang is in the middle)