A Dublin man has paid close to $20,000 to travel to the earth's outer atmosphere in a Russian MiG fighter jet. Breda Heffernan reports.
Accountant Mr Conor O'Kelly (37) from Skerries will travel at almost three times the speed of sound to an altitude of over 82,000 feet on Wednesday - high enough to see the curvature of the earth.
"I'm trading in my grey suit for a space suit...I just have a natural curiosity. Maybe I just have an extra gene," he told The Irish Times.
Mr O'Kelly works for Hewlett Packard and commutes between offices in Dublin and Stockholm.
He arrived in Russia on Monday, and toured the cosmonaut training centre at Star City on the outskirts of Moscow.
On Wednesday he will board the military jet at the Zhukovsky air base.
"It'll be very scary when I get into the MiG. My work colleagues were initially shocked when I told them what I was going to be doing. But now there's a big air of anticipation. My family back in Ireland are ecstatic."
The experience will be "as close as you can get to space without being an astronaut.
"Below me will be a huge blue ball - essentially the earth - and when I look out the top of the jet there will be nothing but the blackness of space."
As the supersonic aircraft reaches Mach 2.5 and an altitude three times higher than Mount Everest, his pilot will perform acrobatic manoeuvres such as "tail slides" and "cobras".
"He will be very experienced as there are only a handful of pilots qualified to fly at such a high altitude.
"I will be flying with one of two test pilots at the base, both of whom have been awarded the Hero of Russia, the highest military honour, so I'll be in safe hands ... But then if anything goes wrong up there it's not like I can just jump out."
Insurance companies have yet to offer "edge of space" cover. "I just have normal travel insurance."
Mr O'Kelly says his trip is "a bit of fun, more so than living out a dream. It's not part of my life master plan or anything. When the opportunity crosses your path you have to recognise it and go for it."
The flight, which lasts approximately 40 minutes, doesn't come cheap. A package similar to Mr O'Kelly's costs in the region of $19,000 or $475 per minute. "It's the equivalent of a family car. It's within the means of a lot of people."
As the Russian space programme crumbles due to a lack of funding, space tourism and trips like Mr O'Kelly's are an increasingly important source of revenue.
"I believe that this sort of thing is helping the next generation," he argues.
"They will get some benefit by virtue of the fact that members of the public are subjecting themselves to this lunacy. I won't be carrying out scientific tests up there, but the funds from space tourism will be put back into research.
"There's no reason why space should be restricted to governmental agencies. There's no reason why tourists shouldn't be experiencing it."
The company providing the trip, Space Adventures, counts former astronaut and second man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, and other NASA personnel as company directors and advisers.
Based in Arlington, Virginia, its first customer was American millionaire Mr Denis Tito who paid $20 million to travel to outer space.
Space Adventures is already booking flights costing £98,000 on suborbital space vehicles that don't even exist yet.
More than 100 aspiring astronauts have paid deposits.
According to the CEO of Space Adventures, Mr Eric Anderson, none of their clients withdrew their support after seven astronauts lost their lives on re-entry into the earth's atmosphere on a space shuttle.
"The best way to make rockets safe and more economical is to fly more of them," he said.