Laid-back billionaire Richard Branson continues his bid for world domination

He leaps out of planes, puts green into Al Gore's green movement, soaks up rays on Necker—the British Virgin Island he bought in the '70s for a £180,000 steal—and unwinds in a hillside Kasbah retreat outside Marrakech. But sometimes you can catch British billionaire Sir Richard Branson correcting what must be a 24/7 state of jet lag with a snooze in coach. (Such was his sleepy state when Radar's reporter tagged along on Virgin America's inaugural L.A./NYC flight.) Branson may deserve to take a break. His minority stake in the carrier came after a years-long battle over foreign ownership of a United States airline. Radar recently caught up the rebellious royal who shared some thoughts on cruising in the friendly skies, cryogenics, and 90-year-old astronauts.

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Radar: I love the flattering nightclub lighting on your planes. You're just inviting people to mile high club it, although the seat-to-seat chat room seems kind of risky—e-dating without jpegs.
Richard Branson: The whole plane can join the chat. And you can go to the loo and just walk by and check out 2D or 2F. Every time I talked about dating I used to get nasty looks from our PR people. You can't say that in America.

I know you have your Limited Edition hotels around the world. How about putting fear in the Thompson Group with properties in L.A. and New York?
We are looking at a site in New York for a hotel. I'm sure if we do New York, we'll most definitely look at L.A.

And on the L.A. side, any film or TV endeavors beyond your reality show?
The last film I made was George Orwell's "1984." It was Richard Burton's last film with John Hurt. Quite a strong film. We're actually in discussions tonight with some people about setting up a Virgin television company in L.A. and making our own original programming—branded Virgin television.

Will you ever tire of (or retire from) being the face of Virgin? Obviously you're not going to live forever—unless you explore cryogenics.
It's quite funny because there was an auction to have lunch with me. Someone paid $15,000 to have lunch with me in England. I had no idea who this person was. When he sat down I asked him why he'd paid all this money to have lunch with me. He said, "I'm head of the Cryogenic Society and we've got scientists, and we've got this and that...but we don't have a successful businessman." I said, well, thank you so much, I'm going to live my life to its fullest, but I have no wish to come back in 200 years time.

So who is Virgin's future Richard Branson?
My daughter's gone into a medical career so I think she's unlikely. I've got a 21-year-old son...

Sam, who's quite good-looking...
...Yes, who's quite good-looking. If he gets interested, one day he could be a useful younger version of me. He's very personable. I've never been that keen on dynasties, but a company like Virgin needs a bigger head and somebody to help lead it forward in today's world, where television has such a big influence.

BRANSON ON BEING KNIGHTED, AND THE FINAL FRONTIER >>

You seem to have successfully decompressed luxury travel. It was all about the Concorde, the Ritz, and ascots back in the day.
There's certainly a side of Britain that has got a stuffy element to it. It's less so now—fortunately, I think.

The pomp and circumstance backlash is still strong over there?
Definitely. I was knighted but I would never dream of using the "Sir Richard" business. It's very old-fashioned. Anybody who's an unstuffy knight definitely wouldn't use it in this day and age. The only time I have people going "Sir Richard" is actually in America. And I say, what is this Shakespearean play taking place?

And you did try but failed to buy the Concorde before it went under.
We couldn't get the Concorde so we've been working on a program that can go even farther with cleaner fuels. It could be the cleanest form of air travel there is. We're also trying to develop aircraft that will take you from L.A. to Australia in half and hour—literally whisk you up outside the Earth's atmosphere and down again. It's going to take a few years. With our space travel program, we are trying to come up with the Concorde of the future. Our space flights will leave from the Mojave Desert in California, and also New Mexico. We'll pop people up from L.A. into space.

With Virgin Galactic, can anyone with $200,000 and a pulse be launched into space?
There are basically no restrictions. You have to deal with some G-forces, but on this one it's not as bad as on a massive spaceship. We've got a number of 90-year-olds who've signed up to go, including James Lovelock, who's the greatest environmentalist alive today and wrote The Gaia Theory. I'm doing centrifuge training with him in December. Stephen Hawking has also signed up.

I'm assuming the nonagenarians will have to sign something to waive their rights to sue.
I'm sure in America you'll have to sign one. That's America.

You hot-air balloon and do all these adrenaline-junkie things. What's your kryptonite?
Most of these adventures, my stomach turns over before I do them. I've jumped out of planes and sky-dived, but bungee jumping was never something I've fancied. But on the TV show The Rebel Billionaire I had to jump over Victoria Falls, and my legs just didn't want to go over the edge. In the end, peer pressure made them go. I'm sure that when we go off into space in 15 months time my stomach will turn over for a few minutes before. We've got to go from naught to 3,500 miles in 10 seconds. It's going to be a rush. You wouldn't be human if you weren't a little nervous.

Virgin America and Beckham seem to be part of our '07 British Invasion. Is Becks part of your crew?
I'd be delighted to watch Beckham play [with the L.A. Galaxy]. It hasn't brought football alive in America the way everyone had hoped it would. But if he wants to become part of our crew, he's got a job tomorrow.