Tito, 59, a former aerospace engineer who now runs an investment firm, said he was ready to finance the entire mission, estimated at around 20 million dollars.

MirCorp chief Jeffrey Manber said Tito would undergo medical tests at Star City, the Russian space flight training centre near Moscow, and lift off for Mir in 2001 if the tests proved positive.

MirCorp was set up with a US venture capital outfit and Energiya, the space station's operator, to find funds to keep the Soviet-era Mir in orbit.

Mir had been due to come down to Earth this summer because Russia's cash-strapped space programme was unable to fund both Mir and its share of work on the multi-billion dollar International Space Station.

The man is Dennis Tito, 60, a financier, Mir Corp. President Jeffrey Manber told a news conference on Monday

If he passes the tests, Tito will fly to the Mir space station and stay in it for a week next year, Manber said. Tito worked on unmanned space projects such as the Mars and Venus missions in NASA for five years.

Later he set up his own company, which makes practical use of space technologies, he said at the news conference. At 17, the news of the first artificial satellite struck his imagination, Tito said. Since then he has been thinking of making a space flight, he said

The contract on Tito's flight is still being drafted, Manber said. It should guarantee both the financing of the flight and Tito's participation in it, he said.