One of Virgin Galactic’s first full paying customers to take a trip into outer space was born to be a spaceman, at least, with his family name one would think so.

Mark Rocket has slapped down $300 grand to be not only one of the first space tourists to sign on to Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space dream, but will be the first New Zealander to be lifted off to where no space tourist on a totally commercial space endeavor has gone before.

If Mark’s name gets picked on the random ballot draw for first flight then he will be not only the first New Zealander civilian in space, but the first commerical space tourist as well.

There have been several other multi-millionaire civilians that have taken a journey to the ISS via the Russian space launches in the past, but these are still considered government sponsored trips even though they had to pay big bucks up front to go. Virgin Galactic’s missions will be the first truly civilian run commercial space tourism enterprise to make this jaunt into space. Their first tourism flight is scheduled for 2008.