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HILLSBOROUGH: Man needs online votes to win space ride

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
   Didier Jimenez, one of three Hillsborough supermarket employees chosen last April to have their photo on a Cheerios cereal box, has a new goal.
   He wants to soar into space.
   To get the chance it, he needs your help.
   Mr. Jimenez, 24, of Hillsborough, needs people to vote for him in an online promotion sponsored by Axe, makers of men’s body spray and other personal hygiene products. The company is offering a chance for 22 people to fly to the edge of space on a private X-COR Lynx sub-orbital plane.
   To vote for Mr. Jimenez, click on https://www2.axeapollo.com/en_US/57312/didier-jimenez?image=4 and it connects to his profile site on the Axe page. You’ll see an image of an astronaut in space gear, with Mr. Jimenez’s face superimposed in the helmet glass.
   ”I always like to dream big and want take advantage of chance like this one but I won’t be able to do it alone,” he said. “I would be honored to have people vote for me to be one of the lucky two individuals to be able to travel thousands of miles above earth.
   ”Even though some might mock me, the sky is the limit but this time around I’ll replace it with space. If I get picked I will do my best to represent my town and will get in tiptop shape. Like my charity work I’m used to putting all of me in to the things I do.”
   Axe has recruited Buzz Aldrin, the second person ever to walk on the moon during NASA’s Apollo 11 mission in 1969, to promote the contest.
   Mr. Jimenez signed up on the AXE Apollo Space Academy website (AXEApollo.com) and wrote about why they should be chosen to fly in space, while others will vote on the entries.
   On the web site, Mr. Jimenez writes, “I want to go to space because I want to make my parents proud that I saw something I wanted and did anything possible to accomplish it made it happen!”
   Winning space travelers will fly, one at a time, aboard Lynx space planes once the tourism firm Space Expedition Curacao begins operational flights. The reusable space planes are designed to fly one pilot and a passenger to an altitude of 62 miles.
   Space Expedition Curacao will oversee commercial Lynx flights from the Caribbean island of Curacao. Tickets for a flight are set at $95,000.
   Test flights should begin later this year. Passenger flights could begin in 2014.
   Last April, Mr. Jimenez and two other Hillsborough residents had their faces in a collage on 150,000 special-edition Cheerios boxes sold exclusively at ShopRites.
   They were three of 90 associates chosen from ShopRite stores across six states for their efforts in fighting hunger in the community.
   ShopRite’s Partners in Caring program challenged associates in its 250 stores to raise funds and raised a million dollars.
   Ms. Byrne and Mr. Jimenez helped raised nearly $10,000 in the Hillsborough store with bake sales, hot dog sales and other fundraisers.