YOU could wait two years and pay £115,000 for the first commercial flights to space on Richard Branson's new venture Virgin Galactic.

But for budding astronauts who cannot wait that long and are desperate to follow Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin into space, a young entrepreneur has come up with the answer.

Adam Thorpe, 23, from North Yorkshire, is organising flights to space in a Russian MiG-25 jet at a cost of £20,000.

Mr Thorpe, a former Ripon Grammar School pupil, is not building his own spacecraft like Mr Branson, and his trip goes 14,000ft lower than the Virgin Galactic spaceship is expected to reach.

But Mr Thorpe said: "You still experience the weightlessness, the blackness of space, and you can still see the curvature of the earth. It's not much different.

"Our jet will go to 86,000ft - twice the height that Concorde reaches - and Richard Branson's goes to 100,000ft.

"Basically our trip goes to the outer edge of the inner atmosphere and the Virgin flight goes to the inner edge of the outer atmosphere."

Newcastle University graduate Mr Thorpe and his business partner, who have set up a lifestyle company offering trips up Everest, North Pole tandem skydiving and games of elephant polo in India, have already signed up two people for the first space trip next year.

One is a prominent North-East businessman, but Mr Thorpe is remaining tight-lipped about who it is.

He said: "I'm hoping the trip will attract people who want to be able to say they were the first person from the North-East or from North Yorkshire to go into space."