EADS, the giant in the European aerospace industry, is planning to go in the space tourism business. It will take its passengers on a sub-orbital path. It is building a space plan for the said journey. People who can pay its fees, will be able to take the ride. The path through which it will travel will be almost 100 km above the planet. Total time of the journey will be one and a half hour.

The journey is costly. Tickets are going to be upto 200, 000 euros (£135,000). So if you can afford that, you can become a space traveler too. But the project will take some time and it will be ready in 2012.

“We believe it is the will of human beings to visit space and we have to give them the possibility to do that,” CEO of division heading this project, Francois Auque said. He also said - “Astrium is by far the largest space company in Europe, so we are very knowledgeable in all these matters. We believe our concept is extremely safe, extremely comfortable and cost effective’.

EADS Astrium is the company which builds the Ariane rocket. This rocket is used for launching commercial satellites. The front end of the probable vehicle was unveiled in Paris.

The vehicle will have two types of engines - jet engine and rocket engine. Upto 12 km height the jet engine will work and then the rocket engine will take it up to its orbit. This will take lesser time as the rocket engine is strong enough to carry it fast. At the time of landing using thrusters to control altitude and jet engine to land, the vehicle will return to the airport.

Four persons can travel together in a vehicle. The passengers will experience free floating in the travel for some time.

The project will cost Astrium about a billion euros. It is so looking for financial partners for this project. The project development works starts in 2008.

At the same time other players are targeting space tourism. Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic has also announced about his space tourism plan.