Today, Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tampa, unveiled a new giveaway that includes a literal trip to space.
The winner will do it on a vessel provided by self-described “luxury space travel company” Space Perspective. The company says that its windowed, bougie-as-fuck vessel—buoyed by a “SpaceBallon” large enough to house the Statue of Liberty—will reach heights of “100,000 feet above 99% of the Earth’s atmosphere as part of the six-hour flight.
The flight on the “Spaceship Neptune—which does not require any training, and involves no weightlessness or heavy G-forces— is valued at $125,000, according to a release from the casino. That makes Space Perspective’s offering less than Virgin Galactic ($450,000), and makes it look like Spirit Airlines compared to the millions of dollars some paid to go up to space with Blue Origin.
Space Perspective has more than 1,700 ticketholders confirmed for the experience, Kim Persse, Head of Marketing & Communications for Space Perspective told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
The early adopters, she said, are the kind of people who love space and cannot believe that this opportunity is happening in their lifetime.
The company successfully sent a capsule simulator up and down 200,00 feet in 2021. Since then, Space Perspective has been manufacturing the capsule casino winners will ride.
Persse said there’s no date set for the flight yet because the capsule has not yet been tested for human flight. Test flights for the capsule are set to start in the next couple of months, she added, with hordes of data collection to follow. The company hopes to do human test flights towards the end of the year.
“Almost there on actual uncrewed test flight,” Persse said. “I think that once we have the test the uncrewed test like behind the wheel, we’ll have a clearer picture of commercial timeframe. But this year is definitely going to be a big testflight year.”
The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino’s “$150,000 Win a Trip to Space Drawing” is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 29 and starts at noon. Five players will win $500 cash every hour, with the grand prize winner being selected at 9:30 p.m.
Anyone with one of Hard Rock Tampa’s Unity cards can claim one free entry daily, and earn more by playing slots or table games.
And we thought car giveaways were cool.
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UPDATED 02/12/12:19 p.m. Updated with comments from Kim Persse, Head of Marketing & Communications for Space Perspective.
This article appears in Feb 8-14, 2024.