Twenty-year-old Vu Thanh Long has been announced the Vietnamese winner of a contest recruiting people for a trip to space.

The HCM City resident will be given an opportunity to travel to spaceon a flight with the international space agency, offered by the SpaceExpedition Corporation (SXC).

Launched in Vietnam inApril by AXE – a body spray and deodorant brand for young men – thecontest attracted more than 20,000 Vietnamese entrants, including manyliving rurally and abroad.

The search for candidates appropriate for the trip has also been held in many other countries around the globe.

The future space travellers were selected using competitive space-simulation challenges.

Together with other winners, Vietnamese representative Long willexperience the final stage of the AXE Global Space Camp in Orlando,Florida, before starting his once-in-a-lifetime journey by 2020.

Long postponed his studies in Australia to return to Vietnam tocompete in the contest, and may be on track to become the world'syoungest astronaut. The current record belongs to former Soviet Unionastronaut Gherman Titov, who was 26 years old when he flew into space in1961.

Long might also become the second Vietnameseperson to travel to space. The first Vietnamese cosmonaut, Pham Tuan,was also the first Asian to make it into space. Together with Sovietcosmonaut Viktor Gorbatko, Tuan flew as an Intercosmos researchcosmonaut in 1980.-VNA