ALICE SPRINGS - For the past five years, Singaporean space entrepreneur Lim Seng has been working tirelessly - and spending millions of his own dollars - to send the first Singaporean into space from a remote site in central Australia.

The elaborate plan involves using a high-altitude helium balloon to launch a tiny capsule - containing a Singaporean astronaut - into the stratosphere. The capsule would ascend above the Armstrong line, an altitude of about 20km, and reach a height of some 25km before being detached from the balloon and descending to earth with a parachute.