JTB Corp. said it has set up an exclusive sales agreement for the Japanese market with US firm Space Adventures to send the country's most adventurous tourists into orbit.

JTB said it would start sales in October and hoped to gross 2.4 billion yen (22 million dollars) in the first year.

On offer from 2008 is an 11 billion-yen (100 million-dollar) journey in a Russian Soyuz rocket that will fly past the dark side of the moon. For 2.2 billion yen, a tourist can spend one week on the International Space Station, after six months of training in Russia's cosmonaut center.

For those with a little less cash on hand, the company will also deploy normal airplanes simulating zero-gravity, with the cheapest trip costing 400,000 yen (3,700 dollars).

Space Adventures opened an office in Tokyo in May, saying it had received thousands of inquiries from aspiring space tourists in the world's second largest economy.

"We are very optimistic about the Japanese market," Space Adventures' chief Eric Anderson told reporters in Tokyo.

Space Adventures made history in 2001 by sending the first non-professional astronaut, US businessman Dennis Tito, into space on a Russian rocket.

The following year, South African Mark Shuttleworth blasted off, also after forking over 20 million dollars to the company. In October, US entrepreneur Greg Olsen will head into space.

The firm last week announced an offer to send tourists around the moon, perhaps as soon as 2008, for a cool 100 million dollars.

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