The UK government has backed plans to build a spaceport for commercial spaceflight, hoping to eventually offer cosmic flights from Newquay or Glasgow that will be faster than HS2.

It is hoped that the new ports will become hubs for commercial flights into space, offering trips into the cosmos as well as super-fast round the world flights. Companies involved in developing such technology hope that space planes will eventually be able to fly to Australia in two hours.

That could mean a journey from the new port to Sydney would be quicker than a trip to Manchester. Even under the High Speed 2 railway — the Government's other big transport plan — journey times while travelling around the UK on the train will be comparable with those travelling into space and other places in the world through the spaceport.

"Launching satellites and operating commercial space flights from our shores was once only confined to the depths of science fiction," said Vince Cable, the business secretary. "But with the results of this consultation we are one step closer to making this a very real ability in the near future."