David Mossor pasted a picture of his face on a space suit and was asked a simple question: “Why do you want to go to space?”

More than 15,000 other people answered the same question, giving responses such as, “Dolphin dives in space are epic!” and, “Voldemort promised me a spaceship, but he died, so this is plan B.”

Mossor, senior integrated science major, took the question presented by Axe Body Spray a bit more seriously. Axe is currently holding an online competition to send 10 individuals to space camp and one lucky person to space with the private company SpaceX. Contest participants post their reasons for wanting to go to space, and people can vote for whom they want to win.

“I want to be a physics teacher,” Mossor wrote in his answer to the question. “It would be a wonderful and valuable experience to share with my future students. I feel like getting out there and being able to tell my students that I’ve been to space or been to astronaut camp would give me a little more credibility and hopefully spark a bit of their interest to know that it does apply to their real lives and that they too can succeed at anything they set their mind too – kind of an inspirational thing as well as a teaching thing.”

Being an astronaut was also a childhood dream of Mossor’s, one that many kids have while growing up. He recalls from the time he could remember looking up and seeing the stars he wanted to travel into space.

Mossor has realized since his childhood that actually becoming an astronaut is highly unlikely for him. NASA only sends the most physically fit into space, and astronauts are held up to near-perfect standards. Nasa.gov says that potential astronauts need to pass a physical similar to those given in the military, have 20/100 uncorrected vision, blood pressure of 140/90 and be between 62 and 75 inches tall in order to be a commander or pilot.

Regular civilians are able to venture into space without NASA, but privatized space flights are costly. Virgin Galactic, a private space company, lists the price of a single seat on one of its ships at $200,000 and the price of a private charter for up to six people at $1 million.

Mossor knows that this may be his only chance to live out his dream and gain a wealth of knowledge for his future physics students.

“I knew that even if I don’t get any votes, I had to try,” he said. “If I didn’t try, I’d always be wondering, ‘would that have worked?’ When I saw it, it was literally like an answer to my dreams.”

The top two winners will be sent to space camp, along with eight people selected by Axe based on unknown qualifications.

“Most people put reasons that weren’t very serious. People put that they want to party in space or do swan dives in space, and I just hope that they wouldn’t let someone like that go because they wouldn’t take it seriously. I just hope that one of them sees a physics major, about to graduate, and they say alright, he kind of knows what he’s talking about,” Mossor said.

After the camp, the one person to voyage into space will be chosen at random.

To vote for Mossor and have Kent State represented in space, log on to Axeapollo.com and vote for him, who’s currently ranked in the top 500 of more than 15,000 contestants. The easiest way to find him is to add him as a friend on Facebook first. When you look at the leader board on the Axe website, there’s an option to “Find your friends” and vote for them. The other option is to scroll through the entire list to find Mossor, which could take some time.

The contest is still open to new participants if you want to try your own odds, and will continue until April 27.

David Mossor’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/david.mossor.376?fref=ts

Contact Kelsey Husnick at [email protected].