Given the choice between a ticket into space and $102,000 (approx 65,000 pounds), 60 percent of IT staff would take the cash. That's the finding of a survey of 4,000 global Twitter followers by UK-based software company Red Gate. The research was carried out as part of Red Gate's current DBA in Space competition, which has a spaceflight as the first prize.

Now extended until noon GMT on Tuesday, November 22, 2011, the free competition, open to anyone who is involved with IT databases in the UK, USA, Australia, Canada and Germany, will put one lucky database administrator (DBA) on a Space Adventures flight into suborbital space. For legal reasons the winner of the competition can choose between the flight and its cash equivalent of US$102,000.

Space or cash?
The Twitter survey found that cash-conscious DBAs would overwhelmingly put their money into bricks and mortar over space travel, with 65 per cent promising to splash the cash on paying off their mortgages.

The survey is still running and anyone in the IT community can simply visit DBA in Space to indicate their preference for either cash or space. Red Gate has now extended the poll to the entire IT community - people can visit DBA in Space to make their choice between cash or space.

Catching fire in the community
The competition has already caught fire in the IT community - the DBA in Space site has seen 67,000 unique visitors, with the different pages and videos viewed more than 263,000 times.

The UK currently leads the way in terms of visits per head of population, closely followed by Australia and then the USA.

More than 2,400 competition tweets have been sent, as entrants scrabble to find the answers to the 14 video-based sci-fi questions. Fifteen finalists will be chosen, based on answering all the quiz questions correctly and revealing what they'd tweet from space.

Finalists will take part in an American Idol style vote off, with the ultimate winner chosen by a 50/50 combination of the public vote and a panel of judges.

Still time to enter
"We created this competition to celebrate the underappreciated work that database administrators do and to reward one lucky person with a trip into space," says Neil Davidson, joint-CEO of Red Gate.

"But it looks like the recession is really biting, as six out of 10 would rather take the substantial cash equivalent instead of the journey of a lifetime.

"We want to find out what other people think - so we've opened the poll up to ask the whole IT community: Would you go for space or cash? And while we call it DBA in Space the prize is open to anyone that works on databases - DBA doesn't have to be your job title.

"There's still time to enter before the extended deadline of 22 November, and you have a great chance as only one in five of applicants so far are getting all 14 answers right."

After the competition closes, the answers to the sci-fi quiz questions will be announced on November 23, with the 15 finalists of DBA in Space revealed on December 6, 2011.