EADS, or the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, has said it can see a day when space travel becomes as routine as paying £17.99 to go via RyanAir to Amsterdam for a three-day stag-do.

“It will develop towards a classical aeronautical business model. Someone will build the planes; somebody will operate them; somebody will sell the tickets; somebody will provide the accommodation – like any tourism,” said Robert Laine, the chief technical officer of the rocket builder. A division of EADS called Astrium, which currently makes the Ariane rocket, reckons it’ll be knocking about 10 “space planes” a year to sell to operators.

Here’s an entirely unrelated photograph of the space shuttle Endeavour in which you can clearly see an astronaut’s iPod through the window:

So hopefully, before we die, we’ll all get…