Colonel David Scott met the newsreader while space adviser at ITN.

"David and I are together and very happy and we want to spend our future together," Ms Ford told a national newspaper.

"Eventually we plan to marry."

The couple are believed to have met some years ago when Colonel Scott was space adviser at ITN, Ms Ford's previous employer.

Romance blossomed last year when they met again in London, where Colonel Scott is now based.

Ms Ford has two daughters, Claire, 18, and Kate, 15, by her second husband the cartoonist Mark Boxer, who died from a brain tumour in 1988.

Walking on the moon: Colonel Scott led the 1971 Apollo 15 mission.

Colonel Scott, who walked on the moon on the Apollo 15 mission and co-drove the first lunar roving vehicle, has two sons.

He was first selected as an astronaut in 1963 by Nasa and also took part in the Gemini 8 and Apollo 9 missions.

He later became director of Nasa's Dryden Flight Centre in California before founding his own company.

A BBC spokesman refused to comment on the couple's relationship.

"It is a private matter for her," he said.