What’s your vision for solar system exploration? And how cool would it be to send it literally into the solar system?
NASA is offering its fans the chance to compose a tweet or send a picture showing how we can step out into the cosmos. The best ones among these will be placed aboard a spacecraft that will zoom to an asteroid in 2016.
The “time capsule” will be placed aboard the Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx). If all goes to plan, it will meet with the asteroid Bennu in 2019, pick up a sample and then return it to Earth in 2023.
And by the way, you can also send your name to Bennu via this form (a joint initiative of NASA and the Planetary Society.) Seems a good chance to get your name off of Earth, until the time when space travel becomes affordable to ordinary citizens.
For more details about the tweets and images time capsule, visit this NASA website. Make sure to submit your message before Sept. 30.
Source: NASA