Simon Cowell: BGT winner will perform in space

Simon Cowell wants the 'Britain's Got Talent' winner to perform in space, with the music mogul joining them on board Sir Richard Branson's multi-million pound inaugural Virgin Galactic space mission l

Simon Cowell wants the 'Britain's Got Talent' winner to perform in space.

The 52-year-old music mogul - who will return to the panel of the ITV1 show this year alongside Amanda Holden, David Walliams and Alesha Dixon - is hoping to join the eventual champion on Sir Richard Branson's multi-million pound inaugural Virgin Galactic space mission later this year.

He said: "Richard Branson is the sponsor of the show with Virgin. We are trying to work out a way so that the winner of the show gets to go up in the spacecraft and will be the first person to perform in space. I'm being serious. You could be the first singer or dog act, whatever, performing in space.

"I would go on the spaceship myself - you have to have a lot of training. I love the idea that, if they are up for it, then they have the option of performing in front of the whole planet in space. This is worth tens of millions of pounds, but Richard genuinely is up for doing it.

"It can't be compulsory for the winner, but it will happen."

However, this year's panel may need to step up their game, as Simon admitted the 2011 line-up of Amanda Holden, Michael McIntyre and David Hasselhoff didn't do a "good enough job".

He added in an interview with The Sun newspaper: "I don't think the judges did a good enough job, to be honest.

"There are always stars waiting to be discovered. Sometimes they need to be pointed in the right direction and I don't think that happened enough during the show last year."