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Ever dreamed of visiting space in your lifetime? Well, you may just get a chance to live that dream sooner than you thought possible!

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, Swiss Space Tourism has launched a contest to bring five space enthusiasts onto one of the first sub-orbital flights in history next year.

Richard Branson may be prepping the Virgin Galactic and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos his Blue Origin rocket, but Geneva aviation enthusiast Boris Otter has launched yet another opportunity to visit space, and a more affordable one at that.

A qualified airline pilot, graduate of Swiss Aviation Training and current simulator pilot at Skyguide, Boris had the chance to take part in three cosmonaut training modules at Star City, Moscow, a training center where the greatest international cosmonauts are trained. He was tutored by the same instructors as Thomas Pesquet.

Through a crowd-funding contest of a purchased ticket for USD $100/EUR 80, you get a chance to join the other billionaires above in space, that is, if you become a member of the Swiss Space Tourism Association (via online registration and ticket purchase), then pass a medical check to ensure that you can physically withstand a sub-orbital flight above the Karman line (at an altitude of 100 km).

Boris aims to raise USD 2M by registering 20,000 active members by April 12, 2020 to cover the flight costs aboard the Blue Origin in its six-passenger New Shephard model, stating “The advantage of Blue Origin is that the waiting list is shorter than that of Virgin Galactic. Virgin already has 650 registered participants.”

[4th Parabola During Zero G flight on board the Ilyushin 76 MDK of Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, Star City, Moscow. Photo Copyright Yuri Glazkov, April 2016]

Selection Process

In order to select winners from the 20,000 members registered online, the results of a 30 space-related-question quiz, a personal motivational text of 15 lines, and confirmation of the absence of medical contra-indications will allow the selection committee to determine five winners of tickets for the space flight. Pilot Boris Otter has reserved the first seat for himself.

Piqued your interest? Visit Swiss Space Tourism online for contest registration/details on how to start a dream journey into space!