James Cameron trained for space trip

Moviemaker JAMES CAMERON underwent astronaut training for a planned mission into space but the trip was called off at the last minute.

The Avatar director has revealed he spent the summer of 2000 in Moscow undergoing training for a trip to the Russian Mir Space Station, however it was eventually called off and Cameron missed his chance to go into orbit.

The filmmaker hasn't divulged the details of exactly what went wrong, but claims the scrapped plans were linked to the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, when the craft disintegrated on re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven crew members.

He tells The Hollywood Reporter, "In 2000 I spent the summer in Moscow going through the cosmonaut biomedical protocols and centrifugal training and all that stuff. I was going to go to the Mir space station when it was still in orbit. It's a long story, but unfortunately that fell through - I'll just say it had a lot to do with the crash of Columbia."

When asked whether he hopes to eventually make the trip to space, Cameron replies, "Well, yeah - it's a big future right?"