But in the meantime NASA is inviting you to visit Mars in a different way: on a microchip.
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NASA is sending its InSight Mars lander to the Red Planet, and it wants the public to come along too.
InSight will launch from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base in March 2016 and it is scheduled to land on Mars on September 28 of the same year. “By participating in this opportunity to send your name aboard InSight to the Red Planet, you’re showing that you’re part of that journey and the future of space exploration”, he said in a statement.
The InSight lander is a drill that will dig deep down into the surface of Mars so NASA scientists can study the interior of the planet for the first time.
This, will not only help us understand more about the most famous planet of our solar system, but it will also help us broaden our knowledge on the creation and the evolution of all rocky planets, such as Earth.
Our next step in the journey to Mars is another fantastic mission to the surface, said Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. On Thursday at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, NASA completed developmental test firing for the Space Launch System’s engines, marking the sixth out of seven tests.
To get your name on that microchip – and to earn frequent flyer points from NASA – visit the InSight website.
NASA’s planned Mars mission will require some heavy-duty equipment, and with the space agency having recently tested the RS-25 rocket engine, it’s just completed giving taking the “Ferrari of rocket engines” out on a “test drive”.
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Some 1.38 million participants sent their names aloft on the Orion Exploration Flight Test-1 last December, which sent the crew capsule testbed on a trajectory that subjected its heat shield to about 80% of the re-entry velocity the spacecraft would see on a return from the Moon.
