NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The planet Mars will pass within 34.65 million miles of the Earth on Aug. 27, at 5:51 a.m. ET. It's the coziest get-together for the two planets in 60,000 years.

With the red planet so near, it's easy to imagine having the definitive response to those water-cooler questions about what you did on your summer vacation. Wouldn't the chins of your colleagues drop if you could tell them you spent your holiday on Mars.

It may take a few years yet, but according to some enthusiasts, space travel for the average Joe may soon enter its breakout phase.

Leading the charge is Dennis Tito, an investment-firm owner, who in 2001 paid $20 million to fly with Russian cosmonauts to the International Space Station. Now he wants to help others share the joys of space travel.

In June of 2003 Tito joined the Board of Trustees of the X Prize, which sponsors a competition with the aim of encouraging private development of space travel. First prize is $10 million.

To win, privately funded entrants must build a spacecraft capable of holding three crew, blast it more than 60 miles above the Earth in a sub-orbital flight, and bring it safely back down so it can be used again within two weeks.

It's pretty much the same trip that Alan Sheppard, America's first astronaut, took back in 1961, and well above the 50-mile benchmark that the United States uses to confer astronaut status.

Diamandis expects a team to claim the X Prize within the next 12 months, and that within five years armies of aspiring amateur astronauts will pay about $30,000 to experience sub-orbital flights.

"Eventually, "space travel will be safe and very affordable," asserts Peter Diamandis, founder of the X Prize. "The market will stimulate new technology," and the price will drop, probably to under $20,000.

All this may still seem like wishful thinking, but one company in the space-travel forefront is Arlington, Va.-based Space Adventures, which brokered Dennis Tito's trip.

It's offering two seats on a Russian Aviation & Space Agency flight to the International Space Station at $20 million each, most of which will go to the Russian space program.

Space Adventure's vice president in charge of the orbital flight program, Chris Faranetta, reports that the mission is on schedule for 2005 and that the company has received several applications.

Space Adventure's also taking reservations for sub-orbital travel at $98,000 a pop, projected to begin in 2005.

Another company, Space Island Group, is raising funds to build a fleet of shuttlecraft suitable to use for assembling a space station made from old shuttle fuel tanks. The company plans on bringing tourists aboard for a space holiday, initially charging 75 to 100 of them more than $1 million per visitor for week-long trips. Start-up is projected for 2007.

Studies conducted in Japan, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom indicate strong support for space tourism. For example, a survey by the National Aerospace Laboratory (NAL) of Japan found that nearly 80 percent of Japanese under the age of 40 say they would like to travel into space.

When the NAL expanded its poll to the United States and Canada, 10 percent of respondents said they would pay a year's salary for a space trip lasting several days to a week.

If you find the idea of space travel too dangerous or dear, how about zero-gravity flight? It's not outer space, but it does enable passengers to experience weightlessness -- and you can do it now, although you have to get to Russia first.

There, you board a padded cargo plane that flies a parabolic-shaped arc. As the plane climbs at a 45 degree angle from about 25,000 feet to the top of its arc at 35,000 it accelerates everyone aboard.

When it reaches and goes over the top of the arc and then drops back down toward Earth, you experience about 30 seconds of weightlessness.

The pilot repeats the procedure 10 or 12 times each flight, which lasts less than an hour and a half. You can book through Space Adventures for about $5,400.

You only spend a total of about five minutes of weightlessness for each trip, but those who experience it say it's a rush.

Diamandis said, "I loved it so much, I started my own company."

He hopes to begin offering zero-gravity flights in the United States before the end of 2003.

Space flight for the masses may soon become a reality, but human flight to Mars isn't going to happen any time soon. The problem is not know-how. Technologically speaking, "We can go to Mars right now," said James Longuski, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue University. "No need to develop anything new. What we need is the political commitment and the funding."

It wouldn't even cost all that much, just $50 billion over 10 years, according to Longuski. Compare that with the price of putting a man on the moon -- $24 billion in 1960s dollars, equivalent to more than $120 billion today.

One reason it's cheaper now is that the support infrastructure already exists. "We don't have to develop a huge space net of communication antennas, no computers or microelectronics," said Longuski.

Since no president since the first Bush has expressed any support for human flight to Mars you'll probably never get there. But if you can set your sights a little closer to home, you'll probably be able to experience space travel in the less-than-distant future.

Who knows? Perhaps you'll be the first one on your block to experience the final frontier from a front-row seat.