A Hubble Space Telescope image of Mars. You can now send your name to the Red Planet.
Credit: NASA
SYDNEY: Those that dream of space travel can now send a little piece of themselves to Pluto, Mars or the asteroid belt, as a growing number of space missions ask for contributions from everyday Earthlings.
According to the Planetary Society, a non-government organisation of space enthusiasts, today is the last day to submit a photograph for inclusion in the New Horizons Digital Time Capsule, which is set to reach Pluto in 2015. One hundred photographs will be selected to make the journey.
The goal of the contest is to submit photographs of items from 2006 that people expect will have changed dramatically by 2015. As the spacecraft approaches Pluto, it will snap what the society describes as a "family portrait of the Pluto system", at which point the time capsule will be opened and exhibited to the people of Earth in 2015.
"Going to Pluto is a grand adventure," said Louis Friedman, executive director of the Planetary Society, based in Pasadena, California. "It is awesome to contemplate all that goes on on our planet as we go out to these very distant planets. The time capsule tries to capture both the scale of time and distance of this adventure."
For more information about the contest, visit planetary.org.
The U.S. space agency NASA is sending momentoes of Earthlings upwards as well, giving space fanatics the chance to rocket their names into the asteroid belt.
'Dawn' will be the first spacecraft to orbit "an asteroid in the main asteroid belt", said Marc Rayman, Dawn project system engineer. It will also be the first ever spacecraft to orbit two bodies - Vesta and Ceres - in a single mission.
"Vesta and Ceres are what people sometimes call the protoplanets - they're the remnants of the planet building process," said Rayman. "We want to go there to study them to learn more about the conditions and processes that were occurring when planets were formed."
Dawn will carry people's names into space on a silicon chip, before reaching Ceres in 2015, according to Rayman. People must submit their names by 4 November 2006 at dawn.jpl.nasa.gov.
"It's an opportunity for everyone to participate in the thrill of exploring the solar system," said Rayman. "In my view, Dawn is not just a NASA project … or even a United States project. It's an undertaking of humankind. I believe that people throughout the world share in the curiosity, the spirit of adventure and the thrill of discovery that a mission like this represents."
Mars fans will also have the opportunity to send their names to the Red Planet aboard NASA's Phoenix Mission, with another opportunity presented by the Planetary Society.
A silica-glass DVD attached to the deck of the Phoenix lander will include Visions of Mars - a collection of science fiction stories and artworks inspired by Mars - along with the list of submitted names.
After Phoenix lands on Mars in May 2008, the DVD should survive hundreds of years, according to the society. Hopefully, it will give future generations who someday reach the planet "some connection with our generation," said Friedman.
"It's a very fitting first book in the Martian library that will help connect the then-present with the now-past," he said.
Interested people have until 1 February 2007 to submit their names to planetary.org/phoenixdvd.
