SpaceShipOne, the craft which promises to one day take Virgin Galactic tourists beyond the Earth’s atmosphere made a nail-biting ascent into space today.

The pilot who made a pioneering commercial flight to space told today how he feared he would be killed during the mission.

SPACE tourism came a step closer yesterday when a private commercial rocket flew into the near reaches of space for the first time.

A rocket plane soared out of Earth’s atmosphere over California’s Mojave desert today in the first privately-financed manned space flight.

Aviation enthusiasts gathered in the Californian desert today hoping to see the first flight into space by a privately-developed manned rocket.