Tickets from South Africa's first space travel agency are now on sale - a snip at R626000 each.

A Durban company, Orbital Horizon, owned by Brad Inggs, 30, has become the first African space tourism agent to offer tickets for travel aboard a new suborbital spaceship.

Inggs said yesterday that his company was open for business and ready to sell a ticket to the "individual who wants more".

In December, Inggs signed a deal with US company Xcor Aerospace that allows him to sell tickets in Africa to people who want to travel aboard Xcor's two-seater Lynx spaceship.

Unlike Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, which offers tickets at R2-million each, Xcor Aerospace's price was "affordable", Inggs said.

"It costs less than most luxury cars and could be cheaper than some birthday presents," he said.

If being a space tourist is hard to believe, the spaceship itself might seem like something from science-fiction.

Roughly the size of a small private aircraft, the Lynx can take off from a runway and reach suborbital space in about three minutes.

The Lynx can fly into space at least four times a day.

"Unlike other space travel, for which the passenger sits in the back and then unbuckles to get to the window to look out, the Lynx passenger sits next to the pilot and has a full view of what's in front of him," Inggs said.

The space tourist will have at least three minutes in which to experience the "once in a lifetime" view.

"There definitely won't be any hostesses on board offering food and beverages. This is a different type of travel," Inggs joked.

Xcor Aerospace is now conducting flight tests and plans to carry its first space traveller next year.

Inggs said that, after buying a ticket, the South African passenger would travel to the US for medical tests before a week-long training session at the Space Participant Training Centre, in Phoenix, Arizona.

"The traveller will then go back home and await a call to let him know when his trip is scheduled," he explained.

All liftoffs will be from the US, but Inggs hopes that the Lynx will operate in South Africa eventually.

"Science-fiction is coming true and nothing is impossible," he said. - nairn@thetimes.co.za