Branson: I'll Be in Space Within 'Months'

Justin Bieber and others with a $250,000 reservation to board Virgin Galactic's tourist spaceship won't have too much longer to wait. Richard Branson tells CNBC that commercial space test flights will begin in "weeks, not months," forging a path for the Virgin founder to board SpaceShipTwo himself "in months and not years." The 68-year-old billionaire—who's undergone astronaut, centrifuge, and fitness training—adds the company will begin taking travelers to space "not too long after." The current ticket price is $250,000, though Branson says it could fall to as low as $40,000 over the next decade. Per the BBC, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin firm plans to launch a manned space mission by 2019. (More space stories.)