SHANGHAI: It is the stuff of childhood dreams and science fiction fantasies. But now the chance to fly into space has become a reality for one lucky Chinese businessman.

The Zhejiang millionaire, who wishes to remain anonymous but is surnamed Jiang, has forked out 1,570,440 yuan (US$196,000) to blast off in the world's first commercial spaceship at the end of 2008.

The electronics entrepreneur, who is under 40 and not believed to have any children, will be the first Chinese person to experience space travel with Virgin Galactic, the UK-based company headed by the flamboyant billionaire tycoon Richard Branson.

The new service expects to fly 520 civilian astronauts each year from 2009. Fares will start at about US$200,000 for one suborbital flight and will cover three days' training, but this cost is expected to decrease should the private enterprise prove successful.

Jiang, however, has already booked his seat among the first 100 travellers, or "Founders," as Virgin Galactic likes to call them. He will be joined in space by another Chinese person, a woman. Three Chinese businesswomen one from Beijing, one from Hong Kong and one from Sichuan Province are still negotiating over who will take the coveted spot.

Rupert Hoogerwerf, chief executive of the Shanghai-based Hurun Report, which ranks China's millionaires, is a consultant for Virgin Galactic. He has confirmed that Jiang is ready for take-off.

"He has had an especially strong interest in space travel for the longest time," Hoogerwerf told China Daily yesterday.

"But now he will finally realize his lifelong dream."

Jiang will fly in SpaceShipOne, a six-seated aircraft based on the pioneering aviation designs of Burt Rutan. SpaceShipOne cracked the 99-kilometre barrier for manned commercial space travel in 2005, and has been bankrolled by billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Branson has already confirmed that he will board the first flight with his family in early 2008.

So far, 65,000 people have expressed official interest in joining the world's first space travel expedition, and while few have registered from China, Hoogerwerf expects local interest to grow.

"China has a deep and abiding interest in space travel," he said. "I expect local demand to grow rapidly. But for now we will operate on a first-come-first-serve basis."

Stephen Attenborough, head of Astronaut Relations at Virgin Galactic, said interest would only grow.

"The technology is there, we have the funding, and the safety measures are in place," he recently told a UK website. "We will be investing these initial fees, and then you will gradually see the cost of commercial space travel decrease and become more accessible."

For his 1,570,440 yuan, Jiang will blast off from the New Mexico desert and take a 4-hour ride towards the boundary of space. Once the horizon begins to curve, SpaceShipOne will be jettisoned from the back of a Boeing 727 and undertake a 30-miute parabolic flight across the sky, to counteract the Earth's gravity.

While nowhere near the distance achieved by a NASA Shuttle, Jiang should be able to experience the same weightlessness and disorientation as a professional astronaut.

Jiang and his as-yet-unnamed female compatriot will certainly make history as China's first paying space passengers, but his budget is still a spacewalk away from the US$20million required to fly to the International Space Station.

While still only affordable to the very wealthy, Branson says space travel will one day "allow every country in the world to have their own astronauts, rather than the privileged few."

Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Jason Jiang Nanchun, a 33-yeard-old electronics entrepreneur from Focus Media, refused to confirm that her client was the Jiang in question.

Whoever he is, Jiang has not yet had to seek any sort of government approval to take his trip to space.