This has been done before on other missions, but it’s still cute: NASA is putting a microchip onboard the Dawn spacecraft which will contain the names of thousands of people. You can have your name on it too: just sign up for it!
Dawn is a mission to study the big asteroids Ceres and Vesta, and it’s had a checkered past. I’m really glad to see everything going well for it now! 170,000 people have signed up to have their names sent to main asteroid belt. Will yours be among them?
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
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October 30th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
The sign-up link appears to be broken.
October 30th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
Oops. Typo in the link. I fixed it, thanks for letting me know!
October 30th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
And wee, my name is registered to go to outer space!
Pointless, but fun.
October 30th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
^_^ Yay my name is on! ^_^
October 31st, 2006 at 12:00 am
Hurray, I am off to the stars, well asteroids, even if it is in name only.
October 31st, 2006 at 12:51 am
Cool! I’ve always wanted to see the asteroids. When are we leaving?
October 31st, 2006 at 12:53 am
Frodo Baggins is on his way into space.
October 31st, 2006 at 5:22 am
I’m going off into space! Well, my name is anyway.
Suppose some intelligence (however unlikely) finds the thing? Will they assume all of us are associated with DAWN?
Facinating thought. Wish they did this with New Horizons; then it’d be more likely.
October 31st, 2006 at 6:05 am
I sent my son into space. I hope he writes. Probably won’t. Ungrateful teenagers!
October 31st, 2006 at 6:30 am
Grand Lunar, it was done with New Horizons. My daughter and I are both riding to Pluto and beyond right now. Very cool thought! We are in good company too. Some of Clyde Tombaugh’s ashes are on that probe as well. What a fitting trubute!
October 31st, 2006 at 6:32 am
Grand Lunar, it was done with New Horizons. My daughter and I are both riding to Pluto and beyond right now. Very cool thought! We are in good company too. Some of Clyde Tombaughs ashes are on that probe as well. What a fitting trubute!
October 31st, 2006 at 6:35 am
Dawn is a mission to study the big asteroids Ceres and Vesta, and it’s had a checkered past.
Those poor scientists. They didn’t know that Ceres in fact was a dwarf planet, and not an asteroid.
October 31st, 2006 at 7:01 am
Signed up my brand new grandson. To infinity and beyond, ‘Cenzo!
October 31st, 2006 at 7:36 am
Thanks, Phil!
I’ve signed in. I will let my wife know so that she can then tell her sixth grade students about it.
Oh, put my name in for the New Horizon Mission, too.
Now, let us go!
October 31st, 2006 at 9:26 am
Dang, after signing up the page gave me an 80004005, “unspecified error” so I didn’t get my confirmation letter. Oh well, I tried,,,
GAry 7
October 31st, 2006 at 9:42 am
I got that error too, Gary. Darn, I wanted to print out my two nieces names–they’d think it nifty.
November 5th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
I am not a game, I am not a world, I am WOWgame
March 13th, 2007 at 10:49 am
360,000 names are onboard Dawn… The spacecraft should hopefully be shipped off to Cape Canaveral to begin launch preps early next month