Six-Story High Spaceship Coming to Midtown Manhattan to Support The X PRIZE and the Lindbergh Flight

*** Media Alert For April 24 and 25
***Canadian Team Vying for $10 Million X PRIZE to Take Public to Space

The following is being issued by X PRIZE:

• Who:
• Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman and President, X PRIZE Foundation
• Geoff Sheerin and the Canadian Arrow X PRIZE Spaceship;
• Steven Bennett, Starchaser X PRIZE team
• Erik Lindbergh, Vice President, Trustee, X PRIZE Foundation

What:

Transport into New York City and public display of the six-story high spaceship entrant into the X PRIZE (http://www.xprize.org ) and its Canadian Arrow X PRIZE team. On the eve of Mark Shuttlesworth's $20M ride to the International Space Station, the X PRIZE is sponsoring an international ``Race to Space,'' that will develop a new generation of low-cost reliable spaceships for the rest of us. The X PRIZE is patterned after the Orteig Prize won by Charles Lindbergh for his solo transatlantic fight in 1927. Sponsored by the X PRIZE, Grandson Erik Lindbergh is recreating the 1927 flight from Republic Airport to Le Bourget, France on May 1.

• Route of Canadian Arrow Spaceship into New York (11 a.m.-1:30 p.m.)
• I 87 South to I 287 South (exit 23).
• 287 to 202 South to 80 East, to 95 East, To GW Bridge to Manhattan

(estimated about 12:15-12:30 p.m. ET). Police escort across the bridge ... I
95 to 3rd Avenue to 2nd Avenue South to Queensboro Bridge -- Bridge plaza
South to Jackson to 44th Drive to 21st Street to Bridge Plaza South; to 12th
Street. Stienway Storage at 42 12th Street, Long Island.

• Thursday, April 25 (5:30-10:00 a.m.) DISPLAY
• Rockefeller Plaza: 49th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues,
• New York

    Thursday, April 25 (10 - 11 a.m.) PRESS CONFERENCE
    Explorers' Club, 46 W. 70th Street, New York

    Thursday April 25 (11:30 a.m.-3 p.m.) DISPLAY
    Central Park: 72nd and 5th Avenue, New York

The X PRIZE is a ten million dollar prize to be awarded to the first team that builds and flies a three-person vehicle to an altitude of 100 km (62 miles) twice within a two-week period. Currently twenty-one teams from the private sector in five countries are pursuing the purse. Additional information and photos of the spacecraft can be found at http://www.xprize.org .

Erik Lindbergh's Flight can also be followed by logging onto http://www.xprize.org which connects directly into X PRIZE Mission Control at the St. Louis Science Center.

``The X PRIZE is a masterstroke, a brilliant idea. What the X PRIZE could very well do is to jump-start a part of space exploration that is based on the active participation of regular Americans.'' -- Tom Hanks, Actor, Director and Producer

``I think the X PRIZE should be viewed as the beginning of one giant leap, and that giant leap will involve the participation of citizens in the exciting venture outward into space.'' -- Dr. Buzz Aldrin, NASA Astronaut, Apollo 11

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.