It is the perfect gift for the man, or woman, who has everything, and it has been heavily discounted.


But you will still need a rather large bank balance to purchase the Discovery Space Shuttle, which is being sold off by Nasa for $28.2 m (£17.7m).

The soon-to-be redundant shuttle was the ultimate boy's toy, flying faster and higher than any other machine in history. It was originally worth $42 million (£25.8 m) but the price has plummeted to take in the cost of hauling the monster from the Kennedy Space Centre to a major US airport.

Discovery, which has completed 37 missions into space and 5,247 orbits, has already been promised to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, but shuttles Atlantis and Endeavour are still available, the Independent reports.

Nasa is considering mulling the possibility of putting Enterprise, a shuttle prototype that never made it to space, on sale.

Nasa decided to sell the shuttles ahead of their retirement later this year. They are set to be replaced by the new Ares 1-X rocket, which is due to take over all manned space flights in 2015.

If the new price is still too daunting, an even bigger bargain comes in the shape of the shuttle's engines - no longer required once the craft is in a museum. The agency offered them for sale at between $400,000 and $800,000, but there were no takers. They are now offering them free, to anyone with the ability to take them home.