Nick says: "The Independent reports on a new reality TV show – in top secret production since March – that will trick nine clueless victims into thinking they've travelled into space. It'll be filmed live starting in December.
"Issues that will be explained to them include the fact they will not be weightless in near space and that, like Sir Richard Branson's space-tourist shuttles, their craft will take off horizontally rather than vertically. A Russian fitness trainer will also take them through their physical paces.
The shuttle itself has been built using a set from the film Space Cowboys, starring Clint Eastwood, which was made from a Nasa blueprint. It consists of three sections – a cockpit, a mid-deck where they will they eat and sleep, and a laboratory, where the team will carry out experiments – some of them authentic, others slightly more wacky.
The cockpit has four windows, which are in reality giant digital screens using graphics three times the resolution of high definition television and better than the visual effects used in The Matrix, capable of recreating hurricanes over Mexico.
