The more I hear about Richard Branson’s Virgingalactic “book your flight in space” project, the more I am actually thankful that I don’t have a spare $250,000 in a drawer just waiting to take me into space. Why? Because so many of the celebrities who have reserved a slot are people that I would never want to share an ordinary flight with … let alone fly out to space with and still stay sane. I’m talking about people like Paris Hilton and Ashton Kutcher. Now the douchiest of them all, Justin Bieber, has signed on for the wild. Branson himself tweeted, “Great to hear @justinbieber & @scooterbraun are latest @virgingalactic future astronauts. Congrats, see you up there!” Here are more details about the upcoming voyages:
Justin Bieber is going to space, and he may even shoot a music video in the final frontier.
The teen pop star is the latest celebrity to sign up for a suborbital flight to the edge of space aboard Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, joining actors Angeline Jolie, Ashton Kutcher and Leonardo DiCaprio.
“Great to hear @justinbieber & @scooterbraun are latest @virgingalactic future astronauts. Congrats, see you up there!” Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic’s billionaire founder, tweeted Wednesday (June 5). (Scooter Braun, Bieber’s manager, has also booked a flight.)
Bieber responded with an idea whose seriousness is tough to gauge.
“@richardbranson @scooterbraun @virgingalactic let’s shoot a music video in SPACE!! #nextLEVEL,” the pop star tweeted to his more than 40 milion Twitter followers.
Seats aboard the six-passenger SpaceShipTwo currently sell for $250,000. To date, more than 600 people have put deposits down to reserve a spot, according to Virgin Galactic’s website. However, the space plane hasn’t launched anyone to space just yet — it’s currently in the testing phase, with crewed flights expected to begin by the end of this year.
SpaceShipTwo is designed to fly to suborbital space and back, not make a full trip around the Earth. Passengers will experience several minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of our planet’s limb against a black sky, Virgin Galactic officials say.
The spacecraft made its first rocket-powered test flight in April and should begin commercial operations soon, officials say. Branson has said he and his family will be aboard the vehicle’s landmark maiden voyage to space.
SpaceShipTwo is the successor to SpaceShipOne, a smaller test vehicle that won the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004 for becoming the first private manned spacecraft to carry people to space and back twice within the span of two weeks.
Virgin Galactic isn’t the only game in town when it comes to commercial suborbital spaceflight. XCOR Aerospace is developing a one-passenger space plane called Lynx, which may be up and running around the same time as SpaceShipOne.
[From Space.com]
It’s too bad that SpaceShipTwo isn’t as large as a commercial plane because then all of these celebrities would be stuck together for the duration of the flight. However, I honestly doubt that Angelina Jolie will truly make a trip into space — she probably tossed in her money to aid the cause. That is, if there is a cause. Whatever the case, let’s hope they built this spaceship with booster seats and childproof locks. Bieber’s gonna need them.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and WENN
is there some sort of fee/fund I can pay to get Branson to leave him there?
Haha, I was just going to write I guess it’s too much to hope that they’ll leave him there.
I was wondering the same thing. I wouldn’t want to be on any aircraft with Beiber.
Great minds etc… because like Kate I was thinking the exact same thing. 😀
Can he please take his girlfriend with him?
…and the Kardashians and Leann Rimes.
@Brin – And let’s not forget Kanye, Eddie, Chris Brown & Rihanna.
Kickstarter!
If we could get him, Paris, Ashton, and a few other obnoxious celebs on board, I’m sure we could raise enough funds for the “Oops we forgot to give you enough fuel to get home” campaign.
I kind of sort of like Ashton Kutcher. Why does everybody hate him? I mean, he cheated on Demi, but so many men in Hollywood do and no one hates on them? And I like him more than Charlie in 2 and a half men.
Justin can take the douche supreme, Chris Brown with him.
It gets worse. Now Baby Boy Bieber is getting his bodyguards to steal the cameras of the paps.
We should start a petition to leave him there!
There is one; let me find it!
Here: https://www.change.org/petitions/sir-richard-branson-and-virgin-galactic-leave-justin-bieber-in-space
Read my mind.
Can they drop him off on the Moon?
no, better still drop him off on the sun
@Mojoman – In that case, they should include Queen Bey, what with her single being titled ‘Standing On The Sun‘.
‘Whatever the case, let’s hope they built this spaceship with booster seats and childproof locks. Bieber’s gonna need them.’ HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA Hilarious and that picture is worth a million bucks,whichever photog that captured Tantrum Bieber needs to get a prize.
Genuine question here, and I’m not just taking the piss (although it’s a nice bonus);
Is he seriously going to be able to withstand the G-force of going into space, even if it is sub-orbital?
He’s such a puny little runt, he’d probably end up squished against the floor of the craft.
Yeah, I had similar thoughts myself. don’t you have to go through all sorts of training and endurance trials to be able to go?
Baby Biebs will never pass.
Yeah I was wondering that too, astronauts go through vigorous training to deal with being that far up would all these celebrities do that as well?
As mentioned, they’ll only be in zero G for a few minutes. Astronauts train religiously before going into space to withstand the long-term effects weightlessness has on the human body. (It can have some nasty consequences on muscles, bones and the cardiovascular system of astronauts)
Generally, they really don’t send people up for a few minutes before coming back to Earth. Most have missions on the International Space Station, or satellite upgrades/maintenance to do while they are in low-Earth orbit.
So. They’ll be fine. I doubt any training will be necessary. Though no doubt the launch will be epically awful (followed by awesome), considering they’ll experience on launch about six times the gravity one would feel on Earth. I hope he has a barf bag in tow (and I hope they record the flight itself)
would it matter? in the vacuum of space no one could hear him scream.
…Or sing, thank God.
(Although, that would certainly discourage any aliens, wouldn’t it?)
Good God maybe they will stay in space, BTW I love that you keep using the Biebs being put into the SUV picture by his body guard.
Conspicuous consumption reaches a new level as the ever widening gulf between rich and poor increases and millions are left hungry.
With all Baby Beibs talk about God, I wonder why space seems like the best use of his money and not doing something worthwhile for humanity.
It’s sickening.
Great comments all and spot on Arock; surprised beyawnce and Camel aren’t on the list since they are the King and Queen of offensive conspicuous consumption; In the end we the public, generally speaking, have made these cretins filthy rich and this is the result; if what they “produced” was decent their overall douchiness would be palatable, but as most of it’s crap, that really grates.
I hope this outer space garbage can full of “celebs” crashes into the sun (like on The Simpsons)
Brilliant idea. Send him there, but with a 1-way ticket. Although honestly, the poor little Martians have done nothing to deserve having Bieber inflicted on them.
Much like my reply to someone else above, stating that Beiber’s singing (among many other’s various so called talents) would certainly be a good way to prevent aliens from wanting to come to Earth.
(Unless, of course, it was in order to wipe out the race that produced them >.<)
Open the hatch and throw the brat out into space.
Wonderful, maybe they can make room for even a bigger douche and bring Kanye West with them.
Actually, I’d be okay with keeping Kanye but blasting the Kardashian clan out in his place.
Are we sure this isn’t just some plot to get Bieber into the airlock?
Hope he gets left there.
He’ll goof around and send the ship out of orbit one suspects.. yay.. but I doubt he can survive cold-turkey do without his weed and purple sizzrup drank for the flight time
I can think only of Lost In Space
“Danger, Will Robinson…”
Hey, things go wrong. Here’s hoping.
Great. That’s the ambassador we send out into the universe. So when the aliens try to destroy our planet, at least we’ll understand why.
Excellent point! Aliens will be thinking oh look those little earthlings are trying space travel again, lets go check it out…then find that this lot are on board, decide we are a bunch of morons and they need to come down to sort us out. Thanks Richard.
I hadn’t read your comment before commenting myself above, but as they say, great minds, & all.
At least he doesn’t have to worry about alien abduction. One look at him, and they’ll bolt back to their own galaxy like their balls are on fire.
How quickly can we make this happen?
I have no words to express how jealous I am of this little prick. Hope he finds a (tiny) black hole, and gets spaghettified. Oh, well, I’m going to watch some Skarsgard pictures now, to restore my mood.
With Parasite and Ashton signed up, why not just rename the flight the Virgindouchtastic?
This kid appears to be running the “Vanilla Ice Playbook” step by step. The douche is strong with this one.
Without knowing much about the personalities of previous astronauts and cosmonauts, I’d be willing to believe that, far from being a lil’ douche, he’ll be the biggest douche in space EVER.
Maybe if we all pool our money we can get enough to pay Branson to leave Bieber up there permanently?????
Will he have someone with him in case he has a mini-meltdown?
He could bring his bodyguard to strap him into his seat. The pure douchiness would rival if not surpass the SUV pictures.
there’s something wrong with a grown man who chooses to go by scooter
But, GOB Bluth!
I just snarfed my breakfast at that precious headline!!!!
As a Canadian, couldn’t we convince him to book onto the Mars voyage instead?
This flight is appearing to turn into one of those zany 70s ensemble movies. When are they going to make a film based on the celebrity flight from hell?
Lets hope Bieber’s aggressive bodyguards let the pilot do his job.
Is it too much to hope that he ends up a Space Oddity?
Ground control to major douche…
I don’t mean to be mean, but that hat is 5 sizes too big.. it looks AWFUL.
I was about to say, it would be nice if the ship “accidentally” went adrift in space. But then I saw that Angie is on it. I feel like she’s the tether forcing everything to go right. We can’t afford to lose her!
‘lost in space’ ….those words never sounded so good
props for the awesome header on this story 😉