It would be the ultimate tourist destination - the Russian Mir space station decked out as a luxurious resort orbiting 125 miles from earth.

This is no James Bond fantasy. A group of investors has signed a $20 million (€18.4 million) deal to rent Mir and turn the aging space station into an out-of-this-world holiday spot and commercial laboratory.

We're sending a mission up in March to knock on the door, switch on the lights and see how everything's going up there. It's a risky venture but we're feeling confident," said Mr Jeffrey Manber, president of MirCorp, the company behind the venture.

But this adventure in space does not come cheap. Space tourists will be asked to fork out $20 million a head to visit the outpost which measures five school buses in size.