TORONTO – Imagine opening a door and being greeted by the red, dusty surface of Mars, boulders scattered across the distant landscape, a pale sun in the sky.
Well, that’s unlikely to happen in our lifetime. But in the meantime NASA is inviting you to visit Mars in a different way: on a microchip.
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Participants are invited to add their names on a microchip destined for the red planet aboard the space agency’s InSight Mars lander.
The lander is scheduled to launch in March 2016 on a mission to study the planet’s interior, attempting to better understand how planet’s formed in our solar system.
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As part of NASA’s Journey to Mars this is the space agency’s second similar “mission.” The first was with Orion, the spacecraft that underwent its first test launch in December 2014. About 1.38 million people flew on board that mission.
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The Journey to Mars program is an effort to increase excitement for future missions by inviting the public to participate in various social events. NASA plans to have the public participate in many future efforts over several missions and over decades.
Names will be accepted for the InSight program until Sept. 8.
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