300 Chinese paid over $30b for space trips

305 Chinese paid, collectively, well over $30 billion for a five-minute trip to outer space.

The trip tickets were made available by the Dutch-based company, Space Expedition Corp, and were available for just a single day, June 12.

Nonetheless, all the tickets were sold within hours of being published on an online retail website as over 300 Chinese raced to book a seat on the final frontier voyage.

The journey itself will be made with a two-man craft that will stay in space for six minutes. The tourists will be able to enjoy the weightlesness experience while looking at a one-of-a-kind view, Earth as seen from space.

Although the exact dates of the trips have not been published yet, the future space tourists will have to undergo a training program that prepares them for zero-gravity and flight simulation. In addition, each person has to weigh less than 125 kilograms.

Space tourism remains a limited business in spite of the increasingly growing requests number for space trips in recent years.

'It is exciting that Chinese can enjoy space travel with a click of a mouse. Hopefully it will usher in a new chapter for Chinese to explore outer space,' said ticket broker Zhang Yong.