Justin Bieber has paid his $250,000 to reserve a seat aboard Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, a private spacecraft scheduled for launch by 2015.
In doing so, the singer joins the likes of Angelina Jolie, Ashton Kutcher and Leonardo DiCaprio, according to The Washington Times.
The brainchild of Virgin Mobile’s Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic is one of several companies working around the clock to achieve privatized space travel. Among Galactic’s main competitors are SpaceX, headed by Pay Pal’s Elon Musk, and Blue Origins, led by Jeffrey Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com.
Sixty feet long with a 90-inch diameter cabin, SpaceShipTwo is designed to carry six passengers into suborbital flights some 60 miles above the Earth, carried by aircraft WhiteKnightTwo. The experience includes zero-gravity experiences as well as a myriad of windows through which to observe the out-of-the-world view.
According to the company’s website, SpaceShipTwo “can be thought of as an air launched glider with a rocket motor,” which relies on hybrid technology for a safer journey.
In late April, SpaceShipTwo completed its first rocket-powered flight, marking the company’s entrance into the final phase of testing prior to commercial service.
“The first powered flight of Virgin Spaceship Enterprise was without any doubt, our single most important flight test to date,” Branson said in a press release at the time. “For the first time, we were able to prove the key components of the system, fully integrated in flight.”
The success came after years of setbacks, including the collapse of WhiteKnightTwo’s left landing gear during a landing in 2010.
Besides viewing the entirety of Earth out a single window and enjoying the effects of weightlessness, Bieber suggested on Twitter to both Richard Branson and manager Scooter Braun, who is also set to fly, “let’s shoot a music video in SPACE!! #nextLEVEL.”
The performer wouldn’t be the first to record a video in space, however: fellow Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield beat Bieber to it when he sang David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” while on the International Space Station.