[Your Name Here] Goes To Mars

The-Pheon writes: "Now you can take a trip to the red planet, if in name only. NASA is giving space enthusiasts a chance to send their personal appellation on a spacecraft slated to blast off for Mars in 2003. Think of it, millions of /.ers names on the Martian surface." Of course, you can also send your name to random postcard recipients, which would get you about the same up-close view of Mars, but at least this way you can imply to your grandchildren that you were part of a Mars mission.

Comments

Joilet Extenstion

[Anonymous Coward]

Trust NASA to have about a billion filenames on a CD of peoples names, and forget to have M$haft joilet extension on. James~1 Matthe~1 Sheryl~1 Jonoth~1

Re:Nasa funds Low?

[Drey]

I can imagine "First Post" plastered on it ...
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Spam!

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

Now you can send costless Unsolicited Comercial Mail to Mars!

Make Martian Money Fast!
__

What about these names?

[gelfling]

Pepsi
Oracle
AOL
Nike
McDonalds
Disney
Nokia
Sony

Been there, done that...

[morzel]

Only the results weren't quite what I expected ;-)

Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.

Been there, done that

[wowbagger]

My name (well, my surname) is on Mars. It's also beyond the orbit of Pluto (and Neptune).

My brother worked for NASA (JPL, actually), and his name is on the Voyager spacecraft and the Viking spacecraft.

I remember when Viking landed. I was getting pictures from the mission (still have them - NASA uses GOOD photographic print paper). I even loaned my collection to a local science museum for a while. It was something special to get those pictures back then. Now, anybody with a color printer and a 'Net connection can get them. And this is NOT a bad thing.

It's a crying shame we've allowed NASA to come to this state.

DeCSS

[TummyX]

I wonder how long your name is allowed to be. You could send DeCSS to mars :).

Serious application - asteroid insurance

[Swordfish]

The info-to-Mars idea should be taken seriously.
It's not as stupid as it sounds.

Suppose you think you have an idea which is way ahead of its time, and requires maybe a couple of centuries to be useful. And suppose an asteroid wipes out life on Earth in 35 years from now. Then you would really want your idea to be sitting on Mars ready for future life forms to make use of. In fact, I think that whole encyclopedias and books which explain "How to restart civilisation" should be sent to Mars for safe-keeping.

Even if we don't get hit by an asteroid, future generations will take a look at whatever is written on Mars-mission probes and may finally understand what the great idea is good for, whereas on Earth it could easily be neglected.

city: Adelaide, South Australia

Re:Serious application - asteroid insurance

[gnovos]

Hmmmm. Bit of a catch-22, though. "Geez, if only we could get to Mars we could have all the information that we need to learn how to get to Mars."

Re:Serious application - asteroid insurance

[thefogger]

I think that whole encyclopedias and books which explain "How to restart civilisation" should be sent to Mars for safe-keeping.

Yea, let's write the Civilization-From-Scratch-HOWTO. I'd start like this:

0. Introduction

This is HOWTO will teach you how to start a civilization from scratch. I will call this a CFS from now on.
During this HOWTO I'll assume that you're a Carbon-based lifeform, but this HOWTO is known to work with Silicon-based beings also.

1. Choosing & Preparing the Planet

Of course, the planet must have enough of all the basic recources you need. For carbon-lifeform (using the ATPase-system to gain Energy) that's oxygen.

Note: you need EVERY element from the periodic table, especially uranium and plutonium. That'll reserve you the option to start over from scratch if you have to. Read the GNuclearBomb-Mini-HOWTO for details

...

Enough /.ers send a postcard; surface is obscured:

[Space Cow]

Mars got slashdotted!

Drumroll!

Nasa funds Low?

[dashmaul]

So is this NASA's way of making up for budget cuts?

What's next? Letting rich people pay for a ride up?, Oh wait that's been done already.

Re:Nasa funds Low?

[delcielo]

Even if you allow that the project will cost NASA some money, it's well spent. More interest and participation means that people might vote more space-friendly congressmen into office, which might increase the budget. Aside from just being a good thing to do, it may also be financially shrewd.

Re:Nasa funds Low?

[Kierthos]

No, no... they want a Mars mission that won't crash!

Kierthos

Re:Nasa funds Low?

[Foss]

I can imagine "Sponsored by Microsoft" plastered up the side of the boosters now. Imagine how many names Gates could buy :)

ASCII art

[Dr_Cheeks]

Remember the plaque on that space-probe (Voyager? Can't remember) that had a pic of a man and woman plus a map pointing out Earth and some other stuff (a H2O molecule or something) so that the aliens would know a bit about us if they found it?

Well, when they pick this up are they going to learn a bit about the fauna of Earth, namely penis-birds?

Seriously, does anyone review these before the launch?

The name list

[heikkile]

And in 2005 the Martians come to demand compensation when the rover accidentally crashes in their capital and kills two high priests. They demand the unconditional surrender of the following individuals:

Firs post
First post
Hot grits
Kilroy was here
goats.cx

As all of those have been seen frequenting slashdot, they will nuke the slashdot site from the orbit if said persons are not delivered to Mars within a week.

Re:Memorial

[Woefdram]

Seriously, it's going to be there a long time...

Are you sure? Maybe the CD-eating fungus comes from Mars and is awaiting its lunch :)

Only the name :(

[gerddie]

Dear NASA,

I am very unhappy that you only send names,
because i very much would like to send a full
contact announcement to the marsian females.

Please could you think about it a second time?

Yours sincerely

Beem there, done that

[stud9920]

I wonder how long your name is allowed to be. You could send DeCSS to mars :).

I have tried to do it with the short perl code, and got the following result :

Your name has been entered into the Mars Name Disk list and is pending approval.

Only proper names will be accepted.

If you have entered a URL or an e-mail address, it will be removed from the system.

Note: It is a violation of U.S. Code to improperly use Federal computing resources. You are on an official US Government (Federal) web site now.

Re:If the Martians read the list and invade

[tulare]

What!!!!!?

Somebody set us up
the bomb!!!

The mars mission.

[JollyFinn]

I can hear commentator speaking...
Millions of people, have turned their eyes at mars rider when it takes its first steps on mars. Every eye looks the E-streaming that comes, from earth largest telescopes. Mars rider, puts one of its hooks to land, and beguns moving. It turns slowly left, and making half circle by its movement, then it turns again, but right this time. What has the mars bot gone mad?
Oh now it goes straight a head... wait it turns again right... Now it turns 90 left on its place... Oh it goes backwards now... THE GUYS AT NASA MUST OF MIXED UP SOMETHING... Its terrible waste... Oh now it goes forward... A quite long way... Hey we got a call from the audience of this program... Is that S that it made.... Oh yess... Thats S and P, now it got O wait... Are they trying to write SPOCK there? No the next letter is N, what goverment agency is that? SPON??? What next letter is S. SPONS who is that? Now they got N... [Some one yells from live audiens..] THAT MUST BE SPONSORED.
Oh yeh... who has money to sponsor that thing, atleast, the hook gets some really bad damage after this it must cost a LOT, to get that hook there, for creating these letters. Now it begings writing their name, It starts with B... What company starts with B? Or is that individual like THE Bill Gates. Oh what company starts with BY.. oh its not a company... Oh my mistake, the company starts with M, oh then comes I .... Now C... [Oh that must be Microcash, they have made some serious adverticement in last year, but they didn't have all those capital investors when this was launched... MICRO.. Well it must be microcash...
NO next letter is S, MICROS... Hey it stopped. What happened. What company is Micros... hmm, what's that blue glow in side of that, rider...
What NASA tells us that they have some slight technical problems, with that... lets connect them... "We have some slight technical problems, in the mars rider. We have already tried to give it soft reboot to get initialized again, but it has failed, we still have hardware reboot as solution... WHAT DID YOU SAY... DID THEY PUT IT IN A BUTTON IN FRONT OF IT. OH, WE'LL SUE THEM. WHAT... WE CAN'T THE EULA SAYS SO. F(bleep)K MICROS"
Oh back to studio, well we will finish our transmission on mars project now. Good night. God bless america.

It's a start...

[p24t]

Well, at least NASA is continuing its Mars exploration program, even if it is a miracle they can get the funding. Perhaps this will help gain popular support, but most likely not - If they're too small minded to care about space, they won't care if their names are out there. At this rate, who knows when the next human will leave the grip of Earth. It's amazing they've gotten as far as they have on the Space Station. No human has set foot on any extraterrestrial surface since December 1972. We obviously don't lack the technology, just the ambition. A Moon Base, while still sounding like Sci-Fi, would be well within our grasp if we had continued moon missions. From there, it is an easy jump to Mars. (Not distance wise, but the moon is a lot easier to take off from.) Out future lies in space. It is inevitable, as so many things are. I'd rather have my tax money spent on space programs than most other things. Although I will not live to see it, I would like the day to come when we can left the earth behind (as we may have to do some day), and head into the unknown, with only the stars to guide us.

If the Martians read the list and invade

[koreth]

I'm personally going to dodge their heat rays long enough to throttle whoever put their name down as "All Your Base Are Belong To Us."

Re:If the Martians read the list and invade

[baumanj]

I'm personally going to dodge their heat rays long enough to throttle whoever put their name down as "All Your Base Are Belong To Us."

I doubt you'll be able to, seeing as you have no chance to survive, make your time.

My name is...

[glenebob]

John Smith

I come in peace!!!

No, not that John Smith... A different one... The one that lives in New York City... You know, the Big Apple? Big city, in the United States of America... Um... On Earth... City... A place where lots of people get together and live and do business... Yeah, people... Um, the beings that dominate Earth... Um, yeah, the planet next to you... The little round shiny thing in the sky... Green and blue... Closer to the Sun than you are... Yeah, the Sun... Um, the big round bright thing? Yellow... The thing that supplies all your energy with lots of radiation... In the center of the solar system...

I always wanted to go to Mars, but I can't... Um, yeah, Mars... Your planet... Red planet... Like Earth, only smaller and further from the Sun...

Don't you even speak English???
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best way to scare the Martians?

[edamame]

"Kilroy was here"

Say, this isn't meant for aliens, is it?

[justinstreufert]

If it IS meant for ET, consider the following hurdles to its decoding..

• How to read a disc with microscopic pits? Perhaps they have never done spinning optical media. Maybe they'll try to read it like a record with a nanomachined stylus?
• The 8-bit byte
• Skipping or understanding the TOC and other headers
• The ASCII character set
• The alphabet

And after they've spent years on it, what have they got? A list of Slashdot readers! Perhaps NASA will preface the list with "The following people hate your extraterrestrial guts and should be evaporated first upon invasion:"