We're already on every country, & every continent. Why not Mars?
NASA’s InSight Mars lander is making a trip to Mars next year and is taking people along in spirit.
People can submit their names to travel to the Red Planet on a microchip in the lander. The space agency is accepting the names through the end of this month.
The spacecraft is scheduled to launch from California in mid-2018 and reach Mars sometime after Thanksgiving.
InSight, was supposed to launch in 2016 but was delayed by a critical leak that needed to be repaired.
Before that original launch window, NASA had accepted names to be loaded onto a microchip on the spacecraft and brought along to Mars.
This new effort involved adding a second microchip to the equipment, giving even more people a chance to get their names on Mars.
People who submit their names receive a “boarding pass” displaying their name and details of the mission, including the launch date and location and the type of rocket that is launching the spacecraft.
Those who participated in the first round of submissions are receiving updated boarding passes. These previous entries, and those who participated in a similar program a few years ago for the Orion spacecraft’s maiden voyage, have “frequent flier” miles racked up in the corners of their boarding passes.
“After InSight, the next opportunity to earn frequent flier points will be NASA’s Exploration Mission-1, the first flight bringing together the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to travel thousands of miles beyond the moon in preparation for human missions to Mars and beyond,” the space agency said.
Send your name to Mars here:
https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/insight/I submitted my real name to the first chip. With opportunity of a second chip, I logged in through one of our servers in California to submit "Betty Pearl" to the second chip.
My real name is already on chips on 2 other spacecraft in interplanetary space, where the chips are expected to survive for millions of years... unless somebody finds them, or the Klingons shoot it & blow it to bits.
I would suspect a chip on Mars would survive thousands of years rather than millions though.
Topic: Betty is going to Mars! (Read 3738 times)
