• Play an online game, win a ride in space?

By Alan Boyle November 7, 2005 - So you want to fly in space? You could put down $20 million or so to buy a ride to the international space station. You could put aside $200,000 or so for a couple of years and wait for the first suborbital spacecraft to take you to the edge of space. Or you could plunk down a few dollars and play your way onto that suborbital spaceship. At least that's what two of the players in the commercial space race are promising, as part of separate efforts to bring spaceflight within the theoretical reach of the average Joe (and Joan). Sometime in the next month or two, Texas-based SpaceShot as well as the British-based Virgin Group are both planning to unveil online skill games that offer a ride into space as the grand prize. SpaceShot is partnering with Rocketplane Ltd., an Oklahoma company that is planning to begin suborbital service to outer-space altitudes in excess of 62 miles (100 kilometers) in 2007. Meanwhile, Virgin Skill is developing a space-themed skill game that could land the top winner on Virgin Galactic's "SpaceShipTwo" rocket plane beginning in 2008. Online skill games pit players against each other in a challenge that involves something more than mere chance — in contrast with Internet gambling, which is illegal in the United States. On the Virgin Skill Web site, as on many other "casual gaming" portals, participants can pay as little as a half-dollar to compete against each other for high scores in Solitaire, Bejeweled, trivia quizzes or other games of not-totally-chance. Payoffs are deposited into winners' accounts, and can be withdrawn as real money. Virgin's spaceship-themed game, called Virgin Galactic Quest, is being fine-tuned for a debut later this month, said Stephen Attenborough, vice president of astronaut relations at Virgin Galactic. "I've had a look at it," he told MSNBC.com. "It's a very compulsive game." He said the game would put you "in control of your spaceship's progress," with different levels posing an escalating series of challenges. "It will consist of a tournament which will lead to a finale, and there will be a Virgin space seat for the lucky winner — or the skillful winner, I should say," Attenborough said. Attenborough said the lowest charge for playing Virgin Galactic Quest would be a "minimal amount," but could not give a precise figure. The fee may vary depending on the level of play, he said. SpaceShot gets set for launch SpaceShot's founder, economist/entrepreneur Sam Dinkin, told MSNBC.com that he started up his company out of frustration over the high cost of citizen spaceflight. "I'm really mad that there's no spaceflight for anyone to walk up and buy an entry," he said. "The only way most people get to drive Ferraris or go on round-the-world vacations is to buy a lottery or enter a sweepstakes. Or the new way, which is legal in almost all the states, is to play a skill game." Dinkin said SpaceShot's game would be unveiled by the end of the year. "It's a nondexterity skill game," he said. "It's not a shoot-'em-up. It doesn't have anything to do with Virgin Galactic's game, and I'll go further to say it's not a game where people have to play for a while, like checkers or chess or Reversi." A single entry would cost less than $5, and there would be multiple tournaments resulting in space-ride prizes, Dinkin said. "I will sell as many Rocketplane flights as people are willing to buy entries for," he said. Dinkin said he selected Rocketplane as SpaceShot's partner because, in his view, the company would be the first to offer suborbital spaceflights. In a news release, Rocketplane President George French said the SpaceShot prizes would be "a huge sales channel for us." "Even if they award all of our booked flights as prizes, we can build additional rocket planes to meet demand,” French said. Dinkin said the economic calculations behind the skill game were "pretty straightforward." "You need enough losers to pay for the flights of the winners," he explained. "If the tickets are less than $5, and the price of a suborbital flight is about $200,000, and you need to pay an extra $100,000 in taxes, then you need at least 60,000 losers for every winner." The legal calculations behind skill games, however, are unsettled — particularly when you're talking about big-ticket items like outer-space tours, said I. Nelson Rose, a professor at Whittier Law School who specializes in Internet gambling law.

> Read the full story here Source: MSNBC.MSN.com

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