Belfast man to become spaceman

The flight in space will last just six minutes

He spent his childhood staring at the stars from the back-yard of his home in Belfast, and now Nigel Henbest is going to be the first person from Northern Ireland to visit them, albeit briefly.

He is shelling out US$200,000 to be a passenger on Virgin Galactic, the world's first commercial spaceline.

The Virgin spaceship launches from an aircraft at high altitude for a short burn in sub-orbital space, with the first flights set for 2011.

Mr Henbest, who works in science communication, said that 40 years ago he was following the Apollo moon landing and now he had a ticket labelled 'Astronaut 249.'

"I was following as a schoolboy the story of the astronauts landing on the moon and the thought that now, 40 years on, I could actually be in the position to go into space myself - that would have been mind-blowing when I was a kid - that I could actually be up there with them," he said.

He said that he had been a space enthusiast since childhood and that while working as a schoolboy librarian at Belfast Inst he had checked out every space book on the shelves.

"I got a school prize and I got a book on space and I think the teachers rather looked down on that, they said 'What about the works of Shakespeare or maybe Isaac Newton?' but I said 'No, I want a book on space' so it really has been with me all that long way back to my Belfast days," he said.

He may take a little flag with him on his flight, but said his time in space would be limited.

"It's just a day trip, we don't stay up there for any time, just for six minutes in space, believe it or not, then we come down to earth again," he said.