The company
behind the dark Irish beer Guinness will give loyal drinkers a taste of space
along with their stout, but only if they win new contest.
Guinness
has reserved a seat aboard a suborbital Virgin
Galactic spaceliner as one of three experience prizes in an online contest
honoring the 250th birthday of the beer's brewery this year.
Founded by
British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic is a commercial space
tourism company that plans to launch passengers on $200,000 trips to suborbital
space using a fleet of SpaceShipTwo spacecraft. The spaceliners are designed to
be launched from the air by a massive WhiteKnightTwo
mothership and send two pilots and six passengers on a weightless joyride.
Virgin
Galactic currently plans to launch and land space tourist flights from a terminal at
Spaceport America in New Mexico - which began construction earlier this month -
as well as from a spaceport in Kiruna, Sweden. The first WhiteKnightTwo carrier ship "Eve" has been flying a series of test flights this year.
Guinness
officials said their space trip contest runs through Sept. 24 and promised a thrilling
ride for the winner.
The launch will catapult passengers beyond Earth's
atmosphere at nearly 2,500 mph (4,023 km/ph) - three times the speed of sound -
to a point about 68 miles (109 km) above the planet, Guinness
officials said. Once in space, passengers will have a view of the blackness of space and unbroken
vistas of the Earth for 1,000 miles (1,609 km) in every direction before
re-entering the atmosphere and gliding back to its home port, they added.
The beer
company announced the new contest on Wednesday to commemorate founder Arthur
Guinness's signing of the 9,000-year lease on the St. James's Gate brewery in
Dublin, Ireland. Some 250 events are planned in participating countries around
the world. They are open to adults of legal drinking age in their respective
countries.
"Since
1759, Arthur Guinness and the Guinness brand have been behind some remarkable
and hugely momentous achievements," Guinness officials said in a statement. "To
continue this legacy and as part of the 250 celebrations, Guinness is giving
something back to Guinness supporters around the world by offering the chance
to win one of these three remarkable Guinness experiences."
The two
other prizes include an undersea trip to a Guinness bar 229 feet (70 meters)
below the ocean's surface near the Lofoten Islands in Norway, as well as a
private live studio performance by the band The Black Eye Peas.
Virgin
Galactic's carrier ships and spacecraft are being built by the California-based
company Scaled Composites. The new vehicles build on the firm's SpaceShipOne
and WhiteKnight vehicles that won the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004.
For more
information on the Guinness online contest visit: www.guinness.com.
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