Photo : Artur Debat ( Getty Images )

If you’ve ever yearned to travel to Mars, now is your chance. Well, okay, you can’t travel to Mars, but your name can, and that’s as close as you’re ever going to get.


The Mars 2020 Rover is getting ready to begin its seven-month trek to Mars next July, and NASA says it’ll take your name along with it:


Once it arrives, it’ll spend at least one Mars year (that’s about 687 Earth days) gathering data and rock and soil samples for study.

To join the more than 2 million names (including mine!) that are already signed up, go to NASA’s website, enter your name, country, zip code and email address, then click, “Send my name to Mars.” You can download or print your boarding pass.

If you’ve got young kids, they’d probably get a kick out of this and it would be a great chance to talk about space exploration and learn about the mission together.


But if you want to fly solo, that’s okay, too.

For more from Lifehacker, be sure to follow us on Instagram @lifehackerdotcom .

