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Your own one way ticket to Mars! NASA gives members of the public a boarding pass with their name on it
- NASA will use an electron beam to stencil
- The lines of text will be smaller than one-thousandth the width of a human hair
- At that size, more than a million names can be written on a single dime-size chip
Human beings are yet to land on Mars, but they will soon leave their mark on the Red Planet.
Names will be delivered, stencilled on chips, via NASA's March 2020 rover and people will receive their own memory boarding pass and 'frequent flyer' points.
The rover, a robotic scientist weighing more than 2,300 pounds (1,000 kilograms), is scheduled to launch as early as July 2020 and land on March in February 2021.
It will search for signs of microbial life, characterize the planet's climate and geology, collect samples for future return to Earth, and pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.
Exploration: NASA's March 2020 rover will search for signs of microbial life, characterize the planet's climate / geology and collect samples for future return to Earth
The gimmick is part of a public engagement campaign to highlight missions with NASA's journey from the Moon to Mars.
The Microdevices Laboratory at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, will use an electron beam to stencil the submitted names on a silicon chip with lines of text smaller than one-thousandth the width of a human hair.
At that size, more than a million names can be written on a single dime-size chip. The chips will ride on the rover under a glass cover.
The opportunity for people to come to Mars comes with a memory boarding pass and 'frequent flyer' points.
Are awarded for each 'flight', with corresponding digital mission patches available for download.
More than 2 million names flew on NASA's InSight mission to Mars, giving each so-called astronaut about 300 million frequent flyer miles.
Send yourself to space? The opportunity for people to come to Mars comes with a memory boarding pass and 'frequent flyer' points
'As we get ready to launch this historic Mars mission, we want everyone to share in this journey of exploration,' said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
'It's an exciting time for NASA, as we travel to answer profound questions about our neighbouring planet, and even the origins of life itself'.
NASA will use March 2020 and other missions to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. As another step towards that goal, NASA is returning American astronauts to the Moon in 2024.
Government, industry and international partners will join NASA in a global effort to build and test the systems needed for human missions to Mars and beyond.
The Mars 2020 Project at JPL managed rover development for SMD. NASA's Launch Services Program, based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is responsible for launch management.
March 2020 will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
WHAT ARE NASA'S PLANS FOR A MANNED MISSION TO MARCH IN THE 2030s?
Mars has become the next giant leap for mankind's exploration of space.
But before humans get to the planet, astronauts will take a series of small steps by returning to the moon for a year-long mission.
Details of a mission in lunar orbit have been unveiled as part of a leading mission to Mars in the 2030s.
Nasa has outlined its four stages (pictured) which it hopes to go to. This will be multiple missions to the moon overcoming decades
In May 2017, Greg Williams, deputy associate administrator for policy and plans at NASA, pointed out that Mars, and its expected time-frame.
Phase one and two will involve multiple trips to lunar space, to allow for construction of a staging area for the journey.
The last piece of delivered hardware would be the actual Deep Space Transport vehicle that would later be used to carry a crew to Mars.
And a year-long simulation of life on Mars will be conducted in 2027.
Phase three and four will begin after 2030 and will involve extended crew expeditions to the Martian system and surface of Mars.
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