“After detaching from the plane, a rocket engine pushes the shuttle into close orbit. After spending several minutes at its highest altitude, it descends and lands at an airport,” explains chief designer Aleksandr Bruk.

The developers say they need around $200 million to put the shuttle into production. And the ticket price for passengers will be around $200,000. Already the list of people wanting to make the trip is growing.

A bigger, 14-seater version of the shuttle is also being designed. It can be carried by another plane – the Atlant, which transported the Buran, the only Soviet space shuttle in history.

It is planned that the three-seater spacecraft's crew will consist of a pilot, who will sit in front, and two passengers in the back. They will not need to go through any intense physical training with the only major test being a health check. The whole flight from take-off to landing will take around one hour. And for five whole minutes the crew will be able see what the Earth looks like from space in zero gravity.

British entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic has also unveiled the world's first ever commercial passenger spaceship.

The spaceship, designed to carry eight passengers and two pilots, is now undergoing testing, but Branson hopes to launch space tourists into zero gravity within just two or three years.

The flight promises something of a quick thrill as those on board will experience zero gravity for only around six minutes.

Space analyst Yury Karash says that, although there is much in common between Branson's project and the Russian one, this will not entail a space race.

“If we talk about tourist space race, Russia has already won it, because it has launched about seven space tourists into outer space, all of whom flew to the International Space Station,” Karash says. “As for suborbital space race, I do not think it is significant enough to talk about it in terms of a race.”