Oct 30 2006

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Send your name to the asteroid belt!

Posted at 8:12 pm in Cool stuff, NASA, Science, Time Sink

image of the Dawn spacecraft

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?

18 Responses to “Send your name to the asteroid belt!”

  1. # CanonicalKoion 30 Oct 2006 at 8:24 pm

    The sign-up link appears to be broken. :(

  2. # The Bad Astronomeron 30 Oct 2006 at 8:34 pm

    Oops. Typo in the link. I fixed it, thanks for letting me know!

  3. # Michelle Rochonon 30 Oct 2006 at 8:44 pm

    And wee, my name is registered to go to outer space!

    Pointless, but fun. :P

  4. # Confuddledon 30 Oct 2006 at 9:12 pm

    ^_^ Yay my name is on! ^_^

  5. # Johnon 31 Oct 2006 at 12:00 am

    Hurray, I am off to the stars, well asteroids, even if it is in name only.

  6. # diederickon 31 Oct 2006 at 12:51 am

    Cool! I’ve always wanted to see the asteroids. When are we leaving?

  7. # csrsteron 31 Oct 2006 at 12:53 am

    Frodo Baggins is on his way into space.

  8. # Grand Lunaron 31 Oct 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.

  9. # One Eyed Jackon 31 Oct 2006 at 6:05 am

    I sent my son into space. I hope he writes. Probably won’t. Ungrateful teenagers!

  10. # American Voyageron 31 Oct 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!

  11. # American Voyageron 31 Oct 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!

  12. # Navneethon 31 Oct 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.

  13. # L Ron Hubbubon 31 Oct 2006 at 7:01 am

    Signed up my brand new grandson. To infinity and beyond, ‘Cenzo!

  14. # Cheton 31 Oct 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!

  15. # Gary Ansorgeon 31 Oct 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

  16. # Melusineon 31 Oct 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.

  17. # angellon 05 Nov 2006 at 10:30 pm

    I am not a game, I am not a world, I am WOWgame

  18. # Richard Paron 13 Mar 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 :)

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