NASA calls on everyone to send names to Mars, earn frequent flyer points

Image: NASA official website

NASA has invited the public all over the world to have their names sent to Mars along with the InSight lander.

Apart from becoming part of humanity’s continued efforts to explore the red planet, those who sign up will get a boarding pass similar to a regular airline flight.

Image: NASA official website

Applications were opened on October 2 and will last until Nov. 1, 2017. Those who want to be part of humanity’s space exploration history may sign up through this link.  The names will be loaded into a silicon microchip which will fly with InSight for its mission to Mars. As of this writing, there are currently over 1.2 million registered names.

NASA counts this name-to-Mars opportunity as part of their frequent flyer program. In 2014, the names of 1.38 million people were encoded in a chip and loaded on the Orion spacecraft on its first spaceflight test. NASA plans to develop Orion into a vehicle that could one day carry astronauts into space.

A sample ticket after encoding one’s name. Image: NASA official website

According to NASA, those who sign up for InSight may also sign up for future NASA missions. Doing so will allow individuals to accumulate frequent flier points based on the number of miles that a space craft traveled. This will be reflected on their boarding pass each time they sign up for a mission. Who knows, perhaps the accumulated points would one day lead to an all-expense-paid trip to Mars.

The next mission will be Exploration Mission-1. It will be a preparation mission which involves using both the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. The goal will be to travel beyond the moon as a trial run before sending people to Mars.

InSight will take off from our planet on May 2018 at the Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. It has been scheduled to land on Mars by November 2018. This mission plans to explore the deep interior of the red planet. JB

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