Ananova:

A French flight attendant has won a flight to the edge of space after picking up a KitKat wrapper from the bin.

The wrapper contained a winning code for a competition to fly into sub-orbital space on board a new Rocketplane spacecraft, reports Sky News.

Mathilde Epron says she bought the KitKat chocolate bar at her local supermarket - but threw the wrapper in the bin at first, telling herself "it's only others who win."

Two hours later, the 32-year-old decided to try her luck and returned to the bin to discover if she had won, only to find a winning code printed inside her wrapper.

Ms Epron told France Info radio that "for someone who works in air travel it's really a dream come true."

A spokeswoman for Nestle confirmed that Ms Epron had won the prize as part of a competition being run by the company in France.

The prize includes four days of astronaut training in Oklahoma City in the US before taking off in a new four-seater spacecraft.

The Rocketplane XP spacecraft could provide commercial space travel as early as 2010 and will reach altitudes of over 62 miles allowing a five-minute experience of weightlessness.

Ms Epron later told Le Post that if the spaceship is not ready to fly passengers by 2011, Nestle would pay out a substitute prize of 147,000 euros (£116,500).