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Like most kids of my generation, I once used to dream of going into space. Then in 1969, while living in Dublin, I watched live on television as Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon.
It was an extraordinary experience to see this ancient dream become a reality. It seemed only a matter of time before people like me would be able to travel in space too. But over the years, as the space programme dwindled, that dream faded.
Now, amazingly, it seems it might be possible to go into space after all. "Absolutely," smiles Brent Thomas, retail director for the House of Travel. "It used to be 'Space, the final frontier'. But space is now part of our backyard. Now we can sell it."
Last week, 10 of the company's travel agents did a course training them to sell tickets to would-be astronauts. Now, if you have a spare US$200,000 ($290,000), House of Travel will happily sign you up for a trip into space with Virgin Galactic.
But if you want bragging rights for being among the first space tourists, you need to move quickly. The first 200 seats have already been sold - with the full price paid upfront - and at least two Kiwis and five Aussies are among those booked to fly.
More than 10,000 people from 125 countries have registered on Virgin Galactic's website and many have paid the US$20,000 deposit to go on the waiting list. From a quick Google search, the consensus of scientific opinion seems to be that tourist space flights are set to become a reality.
Credit for getting space travel back on track goes to a frustrated American space enthusiast, Peter Diamandis, who noted that the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic by Alcock and Brown in 1919 was prompted by a US$50,000 prize designed to open up the aviation market. He wondered whether a similar prize could do the same for space travel.
Diamandis persuaded the wealthy Ansaris family to put up US$10 million for the first reusable craft able to take a pilot and two passengers more than 100km above Earth's surface twice in 14 days. And the rest is history.
The prize spurred the launch of half a dozen privately funded space programmes, and two years ago it was claimed by a team headed by renowned aircraft designer Burt Rutan and funded largely by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
Sir Richard Branson promptly signed up to pay US$210 million for five second-generation spacecraft to send tourists into space.
Now, according to Carolyn Wincer, Sir Richard's head of astronaut sales - what a marvellous title - the programme has reached the point where his space travel company, Virgin Galactic, feels able to sell to the public.
It was another slightly surreal moment to find myself, at a press conference in Auckland, hearing her explain matter-of-factly that the first of the new tourist spacecraft, provisionally known as SpaceShipTwo, is "under construction in the Mojave Desert and should be completed around October-November this year".
"We'll have 18 months' testing to make sure everything is absolutely right, there'll be an inaugural flight for Sir Richard Branson and his family, probably early 2009, and immediately after that we'll commence carrying our commercial passengers."
Initially, Virgin Galactic will have space flights once a week but as the operation is fine-tuned "we'll increase that up to twice daily by the end of the second year of operation".
So, find US$200,000 from somewhere, and three or four years from now I could be reporting to the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida for three days of medical checks and training, including going into a giant centrifuge to get a taste of the weightlessness of space.
According to Wincer, who has already done her training, this "isn't as tough as you might think". For legal reasons Virgin Galactic isn't taking anyone under 18 "but there's no upper age limit and, as long as you're of reasonably good health and fitness, you should be able to cope with the G-forces okay".
But what would a spaceflight be like? Virgin Galactic has produced a video of one of SpaceShipOne's early flights and an animated version of what a trip in SpaceShipTwo night be like, which certainly makes space travel look very smooth and very exciting.
But the most graphic account at the press conference came from Wincer, who desperately hopes to be on board one of the test flights, and talks as though she already has.
She says if all goes to plan the flights will take off from a luxury spaceport about to be built in New Mexico at a cost of US$225 million.
Spacesuited passengers will have only a short walk from their hotel rooms to SpaceShipTwo (SS2), which is being designed to carry two pilots and six passengers at a time.
Once we're strapped into the flatbed seats, the first stage of the flight will be provided by a giant conventional aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, which will carry SS2 up to 15km.
"When they reach the target height," says Wincer, "SS2 will be released and, once it's clear, the pilot will ignite its rockets for a 90-second burst which will hit mach 3.3 [about 4000km/h]."
"Our passengers will experience quite high G-forces, it's going to be the ride of their lives, lots of noise, pressure on their bodies, the sky changing from blue through to black out of the window.
"And then once they get into space the pilot turns off the engine and instantly it goes silent and they'll be weightless. Then our passengers will be able to leave their seats and spend about four minutes floating around the cabin enjoying the sensation of zero gravity.
"There will be porthole windows all around the cabin so no matter where they are they'll be able to see more than 1000 miles in every direction with the black of space above and the colours of Earth below.
"They will definitely be high enough to be able to see the curvature of the Earth. The initial launches will be in New Mexico, so they'll be able to see the Gulf of Mexico, the ocean, the Rocky Mountains."
The return to Earth will use the pull of gravity, with the wings transformed into a shuttlecock shape to slow the first stages of descent, and SS2 will then glide back to the airstrip about three hours after the launch.
Sounds fantastic, sure enough, but how many of us will be able to find the $300,000 or so necessary to make such a trip?
House of Travel's Thomas reckons quite a few. "After all," he says, "Kiwis will collectively spend around $60 million going to the next Rugby World Cup. Quite a few people already book trips with us for $100,000 and even $200,000. So the price for this isn't out of this world. And it is for a really unique experience."
True enough. Wonder if my wife would let me go?
