Send Your Name to Mars

There might not be any free flights to space yet, but it looks like we might get to travel there – at least in spirit. Well, since NASA hasn’t gotten around to offering Mars vacations yet, we’re all pretty much stuck here on Earth for the time being. But never fear, NASA is aware of the human desire to mark our names on the stars, so it’s giving the public a chance to shoot their names into space on the first Orion mission, scheduled to launch on December 4.

Pack lightly because your name’s astronomical journey will begin, flying in comfort on a dime sized microchip when NASA’s Orion spacecraft launches on its first test flight, the Exploration Flight Test-1. It will take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida and will circle the Earth a few times before whizzing back through the atmosphere and landing in the Pacific Ocean.

But if you thought that was the end of your name’s interstellar voyage, apparently not. NASA has bigger plans. After returning to Earth, all the names collected will continue to hitch a ride on future NASA exploration flights and missions to Mars. With each flight, selected individuals will collect more and more "frequent flyer miles," just for fun, giving space fanatics a taste of what it's like to be on one of NASA's missions.

There is a deadline for getting your name on Orion’s first flight. To get a "boarding pass" for the first test flight, you should have submitted your name by October 31. If you miss Orion this time, NASA will still give newcomers an opportunity to sign up for name fly-alongs on future missions.

To sign up, you just go to NASA’s name collecting site, fill out some basic information and submit. The site then created a digital “boarding pass.” Then, you’ll get the simple message “Success! Your name will fly on Orion’s flight test.”

"NASA is pushing the boundaries of exploration and working hard to send people to Mars in the future. When we set foot on the Red Planet, we'll be exploring for all of humanity. Flying these names will enable people to be part of our journey," says Mark Geyer, Orion Program manager, in a news release.

For those even more daring, an alternative mission has been set up by a Dutch company called Mars One. The corporation announced last year that it was looking for volunteer astronauts to fly to the Red Planet on a spacecraft scheduled to depart in 2022 and land on Mars in 2023.

Unfortunately, there is no technology available for a return mission. And yet, tens of thousands of people have volunteered for the program. However, the organization plans to send only four people to Mars, with the hopes of establishing the first human settlement there.

It sounds like a tale from pulp science fiction: volunteers signing up to take a one-way trip to another planet. But that's just what's in the works in the Mars One program.

Will it happen? No one knows for sure. The company says it needs $6 billion to fund the project.

In the meantime, hedge your bets and send your name into space instead.

Who knows, maybe it will get you on the Martian guest list early.

This is not the first time in recent years that man has tried to leave his mark in space. One company has promised to send your dead pet's remains to the Moon, a haiku-carrying robot has entered Mars' orbit and the Japanese government has transmitted Hello Kitty messages into space. So although the general public still only gets to travel to space on a name-only basis this time round, who knows what the future holds.

Human beings just seem to have a natural desire to learn more, to figure out things we don't understand, and to explore the unknown. We humans thrive on new experiences. Space is probably the ultimate "new experience," and one of the best places for humanity to turn to keep learning. It is part of our nature as human beings that we want to explore and try to better understand the world in which we live. Space exploration is the logical extension of that need.