The winners already been selected. Story below.

http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_3646694,00.html

Contest win launches local

Northglenn man to take flight to the edge of space

By Jim Erickson, Rocky Mountain News
March 24, 2005

Northglenn resident Doug Ramsburg just scored the ride of his life: a free trip to the edge of space on a rocket plane to be built by billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson.

Ramsburg, 41, beat out 135,000 other aspiring astronauts to nab the suborbital flight valued at $200,000.

He will be named the winner today in New York City, contest sponsors said.

"It's still hard to believe. I'm still pinching myself," Ramsburg said Wednesday from Manhattan.

"You look up at the stars and you think, 'Wow, wouldn't it be awesome to be able to look back on the planet from space,' " he said. "And I'm getting that opportunity."

Ramsburg is a credentials evaluator at the University of Colorado at Denver. He spends his workdays evaluating transfer credits for students about to enter the university.

Although he's not affiliated with any organized religion, Ramsburg said he believes God is watching over him and has selected him for this mission.

"I don't want to make that sound sort of fanatical, but I believe that to be true," he said.

"I think there's a real purpose here for me, and I don't know that I've really quite discovered what that purpose is, but I'm ready for the ride."

The contest was a partnership between Branson's new Virgin Galactic company and Volvo Cars of North America. It was announced in a television advertisement that first aired on Super Bowl Sunday.

Virgin Galactic licensed the technology used to create SpaceShipOne, the sleek rocket-glider that soared into space last fall.

The company will modify the SpaceShipOne design to create a craft big enough to hold a pilot and several passengers. The goal is to make suborbital space an affordable tourist destination by the end of the decade.

The first flights - expected to begin in two or three years, pending safety and regulatory approval - will cost about $200,000. Ramsburg will be on one of those early flights, with Volvo paying his way, Volvo spokesman James Hope said.

Ramsburg was selected at random from the 135,000 entrants, Hope said. Applicants had to be U.S. citizens, 21 or older and have no felony convictions.

Virgin Galactic called Ramsburg about two weeks ago to tell him he had won. They asked him not to tell anyone, except for a spouse or partner.

Ramsburg said he told only Jeff George, his longtime partner.

"My reaction was, go for it. Kind of like the Nike thing," George said. "Go for it. It's that once-in-a-lifetime thing that very few people get the opportunity to do."

Ramsburg will receive "astronaut training" and must pass a physical 10 days before his flight. But that doesn't mean Ramsburg, who said his main form of exercise is walking, needs to start running marathons.

"The whole point is to put the common man into space, and the common man does not have the physical attributes of an astronaut or a test pilot," Hope said.

"So Doug doesn't have to be some sort of superhuman person capable of withstanding 12 G's."

About 14,000 people have requested a spot on Virgin Galactic's space-flight waiting list, company spokeswoman Lori Levin said.

Virgin Galactic is not the first company to offer space tourism. Space Adventures arranged visits to the international space station for two tourists, who paid a reported $20 million apiece.

Virgin Galactic's spaceship will be built by Scaled Composites, the same company - founded by engineer Burt Rutan - that designed and built SpaceShipOne

Like SpaceShipOne, the Virgin Galactic craft will be hauled beneath an airplane to an altitude of nearly 10 miles and released.

A rocket engine will ignite, propelling Ramsburg and his crewmates past the edge of space, 62 miles above Earth. On its way down, the craft will switch to a glider-like configuration at about 50,000 feet, then land at a spaceport, possibly in California's Mojave Desert.

The flight might last two hours.

"I already have nervousness," Ramsburg said. "But like I said, I'm sure I'm being guided and that I will have comfort in the process as it moves forward.

"I'm ready for whatever my mission is supposed to be."

The Virgin Galactic

The spacecraft will be an enlarged version of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-prize of $10 million by being the first privately financed manned craft to reach space (100 kilometers or 328,000 feet) on Oct. 4, 2004.

SpaceShipOne stats:

• Length: 16 feet, 4 inches

• Wingspan: 16 feet, 4 inches

• Rocket duration: 80 secs.

• Max. G force (ascent): 4

• Max. speed: Mach 3.5

• Max. altitude (so far):

367,442 feet