Sigourney Weaver has asked Virgin supremo Richard Branson if she can be one of the first passengers aboard his Virgin Galactic space tourism jaunts, UK tabloid the Sun reports.

Weaver, 55, told aides to contact the company and book her a £115,000 seat on Virgin's "VSS Enterprise" craft, based on Burt Rutan's X-Prize winning SpaceShipOne. A Virgin spokesperson confirmed that first contact had been made, and added: "We’d be delighted to take Sigourney back to visit the Aliens."

We sincerely hope that Hollywood is taking a close interest in all this. Quite how the film of the trip will turn out is anyone's guess, although we suspect the finale will involve Ripley - dressed in little more than knickers and vest - blasting Branson out of the airlock and thereby thwarting his dreams of galactic domination. ®

Related stories

Amazon supremo joins space race
Virgin space tourists will blast off to Bowie
SpaceShipOne claims X-Prize
Virgin to offer space flights