Either way, with the opportunity entirely free of cost and the registration hardly taking a minute, it won’t that much of a waste of time to visit the NASA website and have your name registered for a ride into the space.
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“Our next step in the journey to Mars is another fantastic mission to the surface”, Jim Green, NASA director of planetary science, said in a statement.
Last December, the names of 1.38 million people soared on a chip aboard the first flight of NASA’s Orion ship, and for the InSight Mars lander, according to NASA’s website, there are 8,473 people from India who submitted their names for the next mission. To do so, go here.
NASA scientists see the InSight lander’s mission to Mars as part of the path toward getting astronauts to the rusty planet. When you sign up, you’ll be assigned a frequent flyer miles number, as well as an account for future travels. The New Horizons spacecraft, which recently flew by Pluto but launched to space in 2006, carried more than 430,000 names with it on its close approach to the dwarf planet.
The sign-up also comes with frequent flier points-just so you can keep track of your participation.
Interestingly, the InSight lander carrying your names will be on an important NASA mission.
The ‘Send Your Name to Mars’ campaign for Orion EFT-1 was a huge success.
Here is your chance: Nasa will engrave your name on to a microchip and take it on board its spacecraft InSight to Mars in March next year. Its goal is to elucidate the nature of the Martian core, measure heat flow and sense for “Marsquakes”. A self-hammering probe will be positioned to observe the geology underneath the planet’s surface.
“This and other InSight investigations will improve our understanding about the formation and evolution of all rocky planets, including Earth”, Nasa said.
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It is funded by NASA’s Discovery Program as well as several European national space agency’s and countries.
