Back in the late seventies when Star Trek was all the rage, every Saturday evening South Africans would gather around the television, listening with awe to the narrator begin with the profound observation: 'Space: the final frontier.'

Despite the sometimes bizarre storylines, Star Trek captured our imagination with the captivating mysteries of space. Since the earliest times, the stars and the moon have been an endearing inspiration, leading people to imagine that the gods lived among those billions of points of light.

Fast forward from the ancient past to the present day; travel into space, which was once the realm of only a privileged few from the world's most technologically advanced nations, is now within the reach to the man on the street – as evidenced by eBucks and First National Bank's (FNB) 'Greatest Rewards on Earth' campaign.

Michael Jordaan, CEO of First National Bank (FNB) explains: "This competition is all about ordinary South Africans and making their wildest dreams come true. We want each and every South African to believe that their dreams are within reach. There is a lot to be seen in the stars, and indeed that is where we got our inspiration for the ultimate prize," he says.

Sending someone into space is quite an undertaking; recently, South Africa and the world were captivated by the exploits of the first Afronaut, Internet billionaire Mark Shuttleworth. Blasting off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Shuttleworth joined the elite club of less than 500 humans to have left planet Earth for space – however, his sojourn from mother Earth was light years away from the average man, costing a cool $20-million.

Enter Space Adventures

Across the Atlantic, pioneers in the realm of very high altitude flying, have also been fascinated by the prospect of getting out of our own atmosphere to take a look at 'home' like very few people have seen it. Remember the strange, yet satisfying feeling one got as a small child when given the opportunity to see your house from afar, perhaps from a neighbourhood hill? Imagine that same feeling a hundred times over, viewing the very planet on which you live from a distance.

The answer to viably securing a prize that is indeed the greatest reward on earth lay, on that side of the Atlantic, explains Lezanne Human, CEO of eBucks. In Virginia, one of the original 13 states of the United States of America, a small company founded in 1998 was growing stronger – and readying itself for the delivery of a truly dramatic travel service to the market. The company? Space Adventures. It's service? Space flight!

Space Adventures, the world's premier space experiences company, was founded by a team of aerospace and adventure travel experts, one of them Eric C. Anderson – President and CEO of Space Adventures. Anderson is one of the leading entrepreneurs in the commercial human spaceflight and space tourism industry. As an astropreneur (as coined by Wired magazine), he has led the space tourism company to several years of profitable success, selling more than $100 million in commercial spaceflights. This includes the first and only three tourists to fly to the International Space Station (ISS); Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth and the most recent private space explorer, Dr. Gregory Olsen. He believes space exploration is vital to human progress and that by opening the space frontier, we can greatly enhance technological development and cultural understanding in a variety of areas.

Space Adventures recently announced their latest initiative. The first private manned mission to the moon. DSE-Alpha will take two private explorers within 100 km of the lunar surface on the far side, and will be humankind's first return to the moon in over three decades. Two commercial seats are available on this mission and the price of participation is $100,000,000 each.

Anderson's goal is to open the space frontier to everyone and promote private space exploration. Space adventures offerings include space training adventures such as Zero-Gravity and supersonic jet flights, cosmonaut training and actual flights into space.

However, the vision for this institution stretches further beyond space tourism. Their goal is to benefit not only private citizens who fly to space, but also the international space programme as a whole. Reusable launch vehicle technology initially developed for space tourism will spawn a new generation of space transportation vehicles for the next century. As profits from sub-orbital and orbital tourist flights are reinvested in new technology, more reliable, affordable and safer access to space will be achieved. This in turn will open the frontier for rapid intercontinental air transportation, improve satellite launches and facilitate the development of private orbiting space stations.

The sky is no longer the limit and eBucks and FNB realise this!

"With the availability of a service that is geared to increase the accessibility of space flight to more and more people, the pieces for us to create a competition with a truly incredible prize were falling into place," says Human.

Human explains that sub-orbital flight, which today is in its infancy, is considered to be the next generation of commercial passenger travel. "Even as we speak, the possibility of being able to travel into space privately is becoming more and more feasible; Greg Olsen has recently [11 October] returned from a week-long trip to the International Space Station. Within three to four years, our prize winner will be joining the Space Adventures team for the necessary training and preparation to join the as yet highly exclusive number of people to take to the stars above," she says.

During the sub-orbital flight, the prize winner will fly to 100km above the earth's surface and experience complete weightlessness while viewing the earth from space.

Defined as a mission that flies out of the atmosphere, but does not reach speeds needed to sustain continuous orbiting of the earth, sub-orbital spaceflight allows passengers to look down at the brilliant curvature of the earth as they would from orbit.

"As we enter this new frontier, individuals around the world will know that their dreams of space travel are a reality that will continue to draw closer and closer to the reach of more and more people," says Human.

Space is the next frontier – and we live in an age so advanced that this frontier is being tamed day by day.

'Beam me up, Scotty', - how long will it be before the zany Star Trek physics-defying antics become reality.

About eBucks:

eBucks, the rewards programme offered by First National Bank (FNB) and RMB Private Bank, is acknowledged as one of South Africa's leading rewards programmes with highly active members spending in excess of 80% of the eBucks earned in any given month.