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Trip to Space offered as grand prize in the Interstellar Sweepstakes
The TV talk shows this week have been featuring Mathew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway promoting the movie release of Interstellar which hits theaters this Friday. They both star in the movie, directed by Christopher Nolan, who play astronauts that journey to a distant galaxy on a desperate mission to save humanity from a decaying Earth in search of habitable planets across the universe. McConaughey is Coop, a Midwestern corn farmer and widowed dad who’s retired from the space program. He makes the decision to leave his daughter, Murph, and her brother behind for a decades-long trip into space.
Paramount Pictures has partnered up with Fandango who is the official sponsor of the Interstellar Sweepstakes. Each person who purchases a ticket to the movie on Fandango will be automatically entered into the sweepstakes. Vice Media, LLC, via their Motherboard Channel, is listed as the Prize Provider who is working with XCOR Aerospace, Inc. to award this amazing prize. One Grand Prize winner will win an XCOR trip into space! The trip consists of one seat onboard an XCOR spacecraft, the LYNX Mark II, which is currently being assembled, on a date to be determined by XCOR sometime in 2017. The Lynk Flight will take the winner up to an altitude of approximately 100 kilometers (62 miles).
Now I have to admit I’ve never given away a prize like this! Besides the Lynk Flight the prize package also includes round trip air transportation and transfers from the Winner’s home residence to the spaceport, which is still TBD, along with hotel accommodations near the spaceport. The winner has to complete a medical exam to be cleared for travel onboard the Lynk Flight and once approved will receive a check for $50,000. The winner must also complete and sign an XCOR Informed Consent Liability Waiver Agreement and other XCOR Clearance obligations provided by XCOR that include on-site training, along with a notarized Affidavit of Eligibility/Liability/Publicity Release. The total prize package is valued at $150,000.
The Official Rules do state that the winner may choose a cash option instead which is half the value of the prize package, $75,000. In my experience the winner 95% of the time takes the cash. But this prize is not something that anyone can purchase themselves, so who know. Also, the rules do state that there is an alternate means of entry to enter the Sweepstakes without purchasing a movie ticket by filling out an online sweepstakes entry form at www.fandango.com/sweepstakes/interstellar. A maximum of 10 entries per person is allowed regardless of the method of entry.
The Sweepstakes runs till December 1, 2014. The movie has already received some good reviews, both for it’s emotional heart-warming story between a father and daughter, and for it’s visionary effects. We’ll see if Mathew McConaughey is up for another Oscar this year.