AUSTIN (KXAN) – A $20 scratch off could be your ticket to space. The Texas Lottery announced this month a new promotion, the “Space Perspective Cash Adventure,” that could send four lucky winners to space.
“We’re always looking for these kinds of unique, extraordinary special prizes,” said Ryan Mindell, Deputy Executive Director for the Texas Lottery.
According to Mindell, this prize isn’t like a normal scratch off. You win this prize by losing. The $1,000,000 Cash Blast ticket has numerous prizes on it, but if you don’t win any of those you can then enter the “2nd Chance Promotion.”
“You go onto our login promotion site, you enter in the losing ticket, and then we’re going to do drawings off of the losing tickets,” Mindell said. “If you win, you win some cash. If not, then you’re gonna have a chance to win this.”
75 winners of the “2nd Chance Promotion” will receive a four day trip to Florida. Of those 75, four plus a guest will be selected to travel to space.
“And we’re going to give away $100,000 to one of those four winners when they’re up there on the spaceship Neptune,” Mindell said.
Mindell said the Texas Lottery does similar promotions to this often. “Maybe if you win a million dollars, you’re not super excited to tell your neighbor, but if you get one of these trips, then you’re probably going to tell everybody you know.”
Winning a trip to space
Trips to space will be provided Space Perspective. Their ship, Starship Neptune, uses a hydrogen balloon to bring people to the edge of space. The flight takes two hours to reach space, people will spend two hours up there and then a two-hour descent.
“We’re a carbon neutral, suborbital human spaceflight company that offers a luxury experience, to see the Earth from a perspective that less than 700 people ever in history have ever seen,” said Greg Jacobs, Head of Partnerships with Space Perspective.
Besides using a hydrogen powered balloon, flights have other unique aspects. For one, they launch from a boat in the ocean. This is to allow the flight to avoid weather and the busy traffic over Kennedy Space Center.
Because it launches from the ocean, the company is regulated by both the FAA and U.S. Coast Guard. “Those regulations are wonderfully stringent,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs compares the trip aboard Spaceship Neptune to a first class flight aboard an airplane. “They’ll be able to see the curvature of the earth, and they’ll see the sense of blackness of space.”
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Jacobs said the flight will take people to the highest height humans can reach without a rocket. Multiple piloting systems will keep people on-board safe. The same parachute system used by NASA for their rockets is installed as a back-up system in case of an emergency.
Jacobs hopes that trips like this one will take more people to the edge of space than ever before. “I think it’s time that we might try to be able to showcase this to those that wouldn’t have a chance.”
The contest runs until summer of 2024. The first flights for Starship Neptune are scheduled for 2025. If you don’t win the lotto, tickets aboard cost $125,000.
