The 63-year-old businessman was speaking to Nick Grimshaw during the Q&A ahead of Radio 1's Big Weekend

Sir Richard Branson has admitted he has problems with his plans to blast into space - but insisted he is very close to launching his Virgin Galactic programme.

The 63-year-old businessman was speaking to students in a Q&A when he tried to play down the delays.

Building a space ship and a mother ship is taking us longer than we thought but we are very close to being up up and away, he insisted.

He then told the audience that lots of them would be able to travel cheaply in space before they died.

He added: We have brought the price down, it you go up with the Russians it costs $40million so we have brought that down to a couple of hundred thousand dollars which is still a fortune.

"But the 800 people that have signed up will be pioneers and will in time enable us to get the price down and down and down.

I a hopeful that most people in this room in their lifetime should have an opportunity to become astronauts.

We are going to have to build a lot more spaceships to accommodate them but I think hopefully a good percentage of you will have a chance to go into space or be able to afford it.

That is our challenge and we will do our best to deliver.

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Sir Richard Branson reveals launch of space adventure Virgin Galactic is "very close"