A prominent scientist wants to launch Justin Bieber into space, aboard a private rocketship. No, this isn’t inspired by any humanistic desire to rid the world of the teen sensation, but with the intent of generating a lot of buzz amongst the American public about commercial space flight. And, Justin will be home safe and sound, if you’re holding your breath for the answer to the most obvious question.

Ready for space?

Just grabbing attention

The suggestion comes from none other than the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) head honcho, Seth Shostak. Speaking of his motivations, he clarified for millions of fans and detractors:

My suggestion is, be sure to send Justin Bieber on one of these flights early on. If there’s more interest, there are more customers. If there are more customers, there’s more technical development. It’s a positive feedback loop, and obviously that’s good.

The more, the merrier

The idea is to get more attention out of the public, which can then be converted into market capital. The biggest example of this simple marketing plan, despite the obvious risks, is that of Virgin Galactic. It has collected payments from over 500 customers, each willing to shell out $200,000 for a ride. No manned flights are planned just yet, but that should happen as early as 2013 and 2014. Expanding the seed market is the key. And that’s where Bieber comes in, as far as Shostak is concerned.

Virgin and XCOR are both poised to carry scientists and their experiments into space, but that’s just the beginning, hope the companies.

Watch out, space is all set to become the new traffic freeway. With or without music.