So, would you like to send your name to the moon? Yes? Then I’ve got the link to the web page you need!

NASA had the brilliant idea of involving interested people in their missions by allowing them to submit their names at a web site. They take the names and encode them on a microchip that’s placed aboard one of their mission spacecraft. You know those two Mars Exploration Rovers that have been exploring the surface of the red planet for the last five years? My name’s on one of them.

Now you can get your name aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, to be launched in late November. The deadline for submissions is June 27. Yea, I know it’s not really that big a deal, but it’s a simple matter for NASA to do this, and it does create a greater involvement in the mission. I imagine kids would love this.

The overview on NASA’s LRO/LCROSS Flight to the Moon mission page sums up the mission this way:

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is the first mission in NASA’s planned return to the moon. LRO will launch in late 2008 with the objectives to finding safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment and test new technology.

LRO is an unmanned mission to create the comprehensive atlas of the moon’s features and resources necessary to design and build a lunar outpost. LRO focuses on the selection of safe landing sites, identification of lunar resources and the study of how lunar radiation will affect humans.

Of course I signed up. Here’s a reduced version of my certificate.

I understand that you’re crazy-insane jealous.