Tom Cruise secretly trained with NASA to travel into space.

Director Toni Myers told The Sun: “Tom wanted to be an astronaut, he flies his own GulfStream IV Jet and he’s qualified as a pilot.

“He was very enthusiastic about doing ‘Space Station 3D’ but the deal was he also wanted to fly in the Space Shuttle.

“He had a very good chance of doing so but then the accident happened and that was the end of that.”

The Columbia disaster occurred when a piece of foam insulation broke off and struck its left wing.

Meanwhile, Tom previously admitted he believes in extra-terrestrial life.

He said: “I don’t think you can actually count it out.

“It might be a little arrogant to think we were the only ones in all the galaxies throughout the universe — but I’ve never met one!”

Although he has not yet managed to make it into space, Tom played an astronaut in 2013 movie ‘Oblivion’, the post-apocalyptic science fiction film based on Joseph Kosinski’s graphic novel of the same name.