Time, space, the final holiday frontier. Tourists have been offered the chance to cross the final frontier with a holiday in space. Holidaymakers are being asked to sign up for the first extra-terrestrial trips, which are scheduled to begin in 2001.

But their jaunt into the unknown is likely to set them back up to £

55,000 - and holiday insurance isn't included. Travel firm Bakers Dolphin has landed the contract to market the trips - which are being planned by a team of ex-NASA scientists - in Britain. The Bristol-based company is expecting to be bombarded with inquiries from tourists hoping to boldly go where no tourists have gone before.

John Brodie-Good, managing director of Wildwings, a subsidiary of Bakers

Dolphin, said yesterday: "We are used to booking people on faraway holidays -

but you cannot get much farther than this."

People who sign up for the trips will be taken to the United States where they will take part in a training course, including being taught how to cope with weightlessness. They will blast off from Florida in a specially designed orbiter which will take them to a height of 100 km above the Earth for the three-hour trip. Or at least that's the plan.