Dutch World Cup team rewarded with free spaceflight—if it wins
XCOR will give players a ride in a rocket plane... if they win.
If the Netherlands manages to make it to—and then win—the World Cup final on Sunday, XCOR Aerospace will award all the team's members with a free flight to space, according to a report from Forbes. The flights, which can only be taken by one person at a time, are valued at $95,000 each.
The Space Expeditions branch of XCOR was formerly an independent Dutch operation named Space Expedition Corporation (hence the focus on the Dutch team). XCOR, the American company that developed the Lynx Mark II sub-orbital space vehicle, purchased Space Expeditions at the end of June and made it a wholly owned subsidiary.
XCOR's rocket-powered Lynx hopes to take its passengers 100 kilometers up into the Earth's thermosphere—when it launches in 2016. The Lynx should be able to achieve the same altitude as Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, which is set to provide its six passengers with six minutes of low-gravity flight time for $200,000 a seat.
XCOR's offer probably won't cost the company anything, however; the Dutch team's chances of winning the World Cup are the slimmest of the remaining teams, at 13 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight.
