Wanna go to space? Take the Oracle quiz

Ellison has offered to take three developers to space if they beat the rest in Internet technologies, Oracle development tools and Oracle Application Server.

The promotion is specifically open to developers in India, Korea, Australia (excluding residents of South Australia) and Singapore.

"One winner each will be selected from Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America," Krishan Dhawan, managing director, Oracle India said. In addition to one suborbital flight, Oracle is also giving away two Mac PowerBooks, five Apple iPods and 10 Star Wars trilogy DVD sets in the final draw.

The chosen three will get to view the earth from 100 kilometres from above the surface and experience weightlessness.

"They would have the unique opportunity to participate in the historic birth of commercial space travel and help set the stage for future generations," a company's release announcing 'Oracle Space Sweepstakes' said.

So far only two individuals who are not astronauts have made a trip to space. The trend was inaugurated by South African businessman Dennis Tito who went to space aboard a Russian craft. He was followed by Mark Shuttleworth.

For each passenger aboard a space shuttle Oracle will have to spend $1,38,000 and all arrangements for the trip would be made by Space Adventures Ltd.

The competition is open to Oracle employees and independent developers working on the company's technologies.

Developers will have several chances to demonstrate their knowledge and expertise in a series of quizzes focused on the latest Java and SOA technologies, including Struts, J2EE persistence / EJB 3.0, Java coding and optimization, application development frameworks, JavaServer Faces, application deployment and manageability and Web Services and business process execution language.

 The 'Oracle Space Sweepstakes' ends on 31 August 2005, and in September 2005, a random drawing from among all eligible entries received for the entire entry period will be conducted for the Sweepstakes prizes.