Sky is No Longer the Limit for Justin Bieber

Photo Courtesy of npr.org

Pop singer books flight aboard spaceship to outer space

By:Marlon Gomez, Staff Writer

Justin Bieber and his manager Scooter Braun have officially confirmed their voyage to space. Thanks to Virgin Galactic, Bieber will be able to go on the ride of his life.  Virgin Galactic’s billionaire founder, Richard Branson, tweeted on June 5, “great to hear @justinbieber & @scooterbraun are latest @virgingalactic future astronauts. Congrats, see you up there!”

The trip will take 2. 5 hours but only stay for five minutes in space. So how much are these precious five minutes worth?  A whopping $250,000 dollars per seat.  But then again, when you are the world’s biggest pop star bringing in $55 million in 2012, a peek at space can become a reality. Virgin Galactic will be the first company to offer space tourism for people.

The six-passenger SpaceshipTwo made its first rocket powered test flight earlier this April, where it reached supersonic speeds. The commercial manned spaceship reached speeds of Mach 1.2, faster than the speed of sound, which is 761 miles per hour (1224 km/h) at sea level. While the aircraft does have room for four, two of those spots are designated for the pilots. People looking to go on this trip will be required to take a two-to-three day  course, ultimately preparing you for what to expect and how to handle yourself once gravity is no longer holding you down on your seat.

Over 600 tickets have already been sold, including famous celebrities such as Angelina Jolie, Ashton Kutcher, and Leonardo DiCaprio who all booked ahead of Bieber. Virgin Galactic had 65,000 applications for the first 100 tickets. If all goes according to plan, the company hopes to start their flights in 2014. For Richard Branson, this long-time dream has taken over ten years to be on the verge of reality.

Justin Bieber previously tweeted about his desire to go into space last year: “I wanna do a concert in space.” While that is quite the ambitious project, Bieber’s next level of thinking did not stop there. After Richard Branson’s tweet congratulating him for becoming the latest future astronaut, Bieber retweeted:  “@richardbranson @scooterbraun @virgingalactic let’s shoot a music video in SPACE!! #nextLEVEL.”

Marlon Gomez acquired an Honors Specialization from Kings University College. Upon graduation, he pursued his passion for writing and interviewing by completing a post-graduate diploma in Broadcast and Journalism from Seneca College. Among his topics of interest, Technology, Culture and Business are at the top of the list. Visit https://vimeo.com/user13427137/videos to view his broadcasting work.