FROM: http://www.physorg.com/news128874295.html



NASA invites people of all ages to join the lunar exploration journey with an opportunity to send their names to the moon aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, spacecraft.
The Send Your Name to the Moon Web site enables everyone to participate in the lunar adventure and place their names in orbit around the moon for years to come. Participants can submit their information at http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/ , print a certificate and have their name entered into a database. The database will be placed on a microchip that will be integrated onto the spacecraft. The deadline for submitting names is June 27, 2008.

"Everyone who sends their name to the moon, like I'm doing, becomes part of the next wave of lunar explorers," said Cathy Peddie, deputy project manager for LRO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The LRO mission is the first step in NASA's plans to return humans to the moon by 2020, and your name can reach there first. How cool is that?"

The orbiter, comprised of six instruments and one technology demonstration, will provide the most comprehensive data set ever returned from the moon. The mission will focus on the selection of safe landing sites and identification of lunar resources. It also will study how the lunar radiation environment could affect humans.

LRO will also create a comprehensive atlas of the moon's features and resources that will be needed as NASA designs and builds a planned lunar outpost. The mission will support future human exploration while providing a foundation for upcoming science missions. LRO is scheduled for launch in late 2008.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is being built at Goddard. The mission also will be managed at the center for NASA's Explorations Systems Mission Directorate in Washington.

LINK:
http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/

EXCELLENT, thanks for that heads up! Just signed up. I'm an absolute sucker for these.

Me too.

So by late November my name on LRO should hopefully be joining my name on Kaguya. I like...

Deadline extended to July 25.

http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/index.php

LRO drifting to the right a little ( 2009 )
http://www.livescience.com/blogs/2008/07/2...right-a-little/

Deadline extended to 31 July!

This must be the last chance!

http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/index.php

I dunno. I think they're getting greedy and trying to get to 2 million names

That, and if the launch DOES slip to February of next year, they'll probably extend the deadline a lot longer...like to, say, November (the deadline for the Kepler mission, which would also launch in Feb. of 2009)

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In this case, greed is good. Wish they could get 6.5 billion plus names; that would be a definitive demonstration of support for space exploration in general...

Meh, you know that a quarter of a billion of those names would be by one person who had "some" free time on his hands...

aaawwwww, i missed the deadline, if had known i would have changed my name by deedpole to something witty, like pluto, but i obviously would have made it wittier having given it some serious thought

Rybo, you can always send your name to Mars...

http://mars9.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/participate/...rname/index.cfm

And here are photos of the microchip as it was being installed onto LRO:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/mult...for_flight.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/mult...lion_names.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/mult...many_names.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/mult...moon_alice.html