Space travel cover set for launch

Travellers could soon be covered for an out of this world holiday experience after an insurer announced it is considering offering space travel insurance.

Bupa stated that with Richard Branson planning flights into space as early as 2009 and test flights scheduled to start this year, it was looking into space travel insurance as a possibility.

Head of Bupa Travel, Nick Potter, said the firm was investigating space tourism as "a real market for the next generation of travellers", especially as Russian cosmonauts had already taken tourists up into space.

He said: "Obviously we have to take into account various issues, such as the effect such a journey would have on the human body, although clarity will come in this new area of travel within the next decade."

Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic company is set to launch tourist flights into space in the next few years, on flights carrying six astronaut passengers and two pilots and lasting around two and a half hours each.

The flights will take place in the firm's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane which is currently being constructed and are expected to cost around £100,000 per passenger. Tickets for the first flights have been on sale since 2005.

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