Imagine your name orbiting the Moon or resting on the surface of Mars. NASA has turned this fanciful idea into reality through its “Send Your Name to Space” campaigns. By simply signing up online, people around the world can join NASA missions symbolically – their names encoded on microchips or memory cards that hitch a ride on spacecraft. The upcoming Artemis II mission, for example, is inviting the public to submit names to fly on a lunar voyage in 2026. It’s a wildly popular form of public participation: the uncrewed Artemis I flight in 2022 carried 3.4 million names on a flash drive around the Moon, and Mars missions have flown even more. What motivates millions of Earthlings to launch their names among the stars? As we’ll see, this practice is more than a gimmick – it taps into our sense of wonder, belonging, and the desire to be part of humanity’s great adventure in space.
From Signatures to Microchips: A Brief History of Names in Space
The tradition of sending names to space has humble origins. In the mid-1990s, NASA’s Cassini mission to Saturn became one of the first to carry a “message in a bottle” from Earth. Engineers invited the public to send in handwritten signatures, which were scanned and recorded onto a data disk installed on the Cassini spacecraft. More than 616,400 people from 81 countries signed on, in what Cassini’s program manager called a “‘message in a bottle’ to Saturn”. This early effort – collecting actual postcards and signatures – set the stage for a new kind of outreach. As Bruce Betts of The Planetary Society explained, the idea “started as a way to let people feel more directly connected to space missions”. It blossomed into a regular feature of many NASA missions in the years to follow.
By the late 1990s and 2000s, sending names to space went fully digital. NASA and The Planetary Society ran campaigns for missions like Stardust (launched 1999), which carried two microchips with over 1 million names, including all 52,214 names from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The Deep Impact probe (2005) delivered 650,000 names to a comet, literally vaporizing them on impact. The twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on Mars in 2004, each bore microchips with the names of planetary enthusiasts (Opportunity’s chip of names is still intact on Mars years later). NASA’s outreach expanded with missions like the New Horizons probe to Pluto in 2006, which had a CD onboard listing 434,738 names that will drift out of the solar system, and the Kepler space telescope and MAVEN Mars orbiter, which also launched name lists. What began with a few hundred thousand handwritten signatures evolved into millions of digital names riding aboard dozens of spacecraft.
Over time, space agencies worldwide embraced this concept. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to the Moon (2009) included a microchip with over a million names, and the Mars Curiosity rover (2012) carried 1,246,445 names from 246 countries on two tiny chips. Other space agencies joined in as well – Japan’s space agency JAXA, for instance, collected names for its SELENE Moon orbiter and Hayabusa2 asteroid mission. But NASA has truly made it a signature (pun intended) part of its missions, especially those that capture the public’s imagination.
Notable Missions and Millions of “Cosmic Passengers”
Over the last few decades, the list of missions carrying human names reads like a who’s-who of space exploration. Here are some of the most famous missions and the multitudes of names they took along for the ride:
- Cassini–Huygens (Saturn orbiter, launched 1997): 616,400 names recorded on a disk, collected via mail-in signatures. This early campaign invited people from 81 countries to send their greetings to Saturn.
- Stardust (Comet sample return, 1999): Over 1,000,000 names on two microchips. One chip, embedded in the sample capsule, returned to Earth; the other remains in space attached to the comet probe.
- Mars Exploration Rovers – Spirit & Opportunity (Mars rovers, 2003): Hundreds of thousands of names etched on silica microchips and mounted under the rovers’ solar panels. These rover-carried name chips were durable silica DVDs expected to last for centuries on Mars.
- New Horizons (Pluto flyby, 2006): 434,738 names on a compact disc affixed to the spacecraft. As New Horizons journeys beyond Pluto and out of the solar system, those names are, in a sense, on an interstellar trajectory – a time capsule of Earthly well-wishes headed into the galaxy.
- Mars Science Laboratory – Curiosity (Mars rover, 2012): 1,246,445 names from 246 countries and territories were laser-etched onto two dime-sized chips mounted on Curiosity’s deck. It’s a truly global roster, representing the worldwide fascination with the Red Planet.
- InSight (Mars lander, 2018): 2,429,807 names carried on two microchips. InSight’s first chip held ~827,000 names collected in 2015, and a second chip added 1.6 million more after a follow-up campaign. Even actor William Shatner grabbed a “boarding pass” for this voyage to Mars.
- Parker Solar Probe (Sun orbiter, launched 2018): 1,137,202 names dispatched on a memory card to “touch” the Sun. These names repeatedly swing past the Sun on one of the fastest objects ever built, riding along on humanity’s daring mission to our star.
- Mars 2020 – Perseverance (Mars rover, 2020): 10,932,295 names – the most to date – stenciled by JPL onto three fingernail-sized silicon chips now bolted to Perseverance’s body. Those nearly 11 million names are currently sitting in Jezero Crater on Mars, accompanying Perseverance as it roams an alien world. The rover’s name plate even bears the motto “Explore As One” in Morse code, symbolizing how this voyage carries the collective spirit of humanity.
- Artemis I (Moon orbital flight, 2022): 3,400,000 names on a flash drive that orbited the Moon. This was the first mission in NASA’s new lunar program – and millions of “virtual crew members” flew on the Orion capsule during its 26-day journey around the Moon and back.
- Europa Clipper (Jupiter’s moon orbiter, launching ~2024): 2,620,861 names collected in the “Message in a Bottle” campaign. These names, along with a poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, will be engraved on a microchip and sent to orbit Jupiter’s icy moon Europa – a poetic gesture linking human voices to one of the solar system’s most intriguing worlds.
This list is not exhaustive – many other missions (from the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sampler with ~442,000 names, to NASA’s climate satellite Glory, to various spacecraft from other nations) have invited public names. But it illustrates how commonplace and far-reaching this idea has become. Literally millions of names now inhabit the solar system beyond Earth, riding on rovers, orbiters, and probes. Each of these names represents an individual back home who can point to a distant planet or star and feel personally connected to a mission of exploration.
Why Do People Sign Up? The Appeal of a Cosmic Memento
What motivates someone to send their name into space? It turns out the idea resonates deeply with the public for both fun and profound reasons. Participation and personal connection are key drivers. Space can feel remote and abstract, but when you sign up to put your name on a spacecraft, “you’re showing that you’re part of [the] journey and the future of space exploration” as NASA’s Jim Green put it during one campaign. People often feel a greater sense of ownership and interest in the mission once their name is onboard. “When people send their names on spacecraft, they often feel a greater sense of ownership and of interest in that mission,” explains Bruce Betts of The Planetary Society. “It inspires kids and adults to participate… and gets them learning more about space.” Rather than being passive spectators, name-submitters become engaged stakeholders – following launch updates, collecting their commemorative boarding passes, and celebrating the mission’s milestones because their name is along for the ride.
There is also a playful, almost game-like aspect. NASA issues digital “boarding pass” certificates for each campaign, often adorned with mission artwork and fun details like frequent flyer points. For each mission you send your name on, you earn a certain number of “miles” – a tongue-in-cheek nod to airline loyalty programs. Enthusiasts proudly share these boarding passes on social media (even Star Trek’s William Shatner tweeted his, showing over 300 million miles accrued from multiple missions). This element of collecting missions encourages people to come back for each new opportunity. It especially captivates students and young people – teachers have reported using the boarding pass sign-ups in classrooms to get kids excited about science. Seeing a child’s name on a NASA certificate labeled “Destination: Mars” can spark a sense of wonder that no textbook can match.
On a deeper level, sending one’s name to space touches on the human desire for legacy and meaning. There’s something poetic about carving your name – a piece of your identity – into the grand narrative of exploration. Betts calls it a “quest for immortality (time capsule concept) for themselves or their family members”, noting how inspiring it is “to feel that your name is going out to the far reaches of the solar system”. We know that as individuals we may never walk on Mars or Pluto, but knowing our name (a proxy for ourselves) is present in those far-off places is thrilling and comforting. It’s a modern twist on an ancient human impulse: from prehistoric cave paintings to leaving one’s initials on a tree, we’ve always wanted to make a mark and be remembered. Now that mark can travel among the stars. Some participants dedicate their submissions to loved ones – for example, including a deceased family member’s name so that a part of them symbolically journeys beyond Earth. (In one early case, NASA even included the engraved names of all 52,000+ fallen Vietnam War veterans on Stardust’s microchip, a moving tribute that literally sent their names to the heavens.)
Finally, there’s the simple “cool factor.” It’s free, easy, and captures the imagination. How often can you say you’ve sent something to another planet without being a billionaire or a rocket scientist? This opportunity democratizes space in a small but meaningful way. As Bill Nye quipped, “You’ll be part of humankind’s exploration of the solar system – how cool is that?”. Millions evidently agree that it’s very cool indeed.
Why NASA (and the World) Benefits: Inspiration and Unity
From NASA’s perspective, the send-your-name initiative is a brilliant stroke of public engagement. It generates excitement for missions long before launch and keeps the world invested throughout the journey. “Artemis II is an opportunity to inspire people across the globe and give them a chance to follow along as we lead the way in human exploration deeper into space,” said NASA’s Lori Glaze when inviting the public to join the Moon mission. This speaks to the inspirational power of the idea – a power NASA first harnessed in the 1970s with the golden records on Voyagers 1 and 2 and the Pioneer plaque. Those earlier messages were more about communicating with hypothetical extraterrestrials, but they also had a unifying effect on us here at home. Similarly, today’s name campaigns send a message from Earth as much as to the cosmos: they declare that we – everyday people from all walks of life – are participants in the spacefaring story.
Flying the public’s names also reinforces political and financial support for space exploration. When millions sign up, it’s a clear signal that people care about these missions. It’s no longer just a small team of scientists and engineers eagerly watching a launch; it’s an international fan base. For example, the Perseverance rover’s nearly 11 million names came from virtually every corner of the world. Such widespread interest bolsters NASA’s mandate by showing that these missions unite humanity in curiosity. In an era when headlines can be divisive, the image of a microchip on Mars carrying global participation is a positive reminder of what we can achieve together. NASA often emphasizes this aspect – the Perseverance name plate’s inscription “Explore As One” was explicitly chosen to honor the spirit of collective exploration, even mimicking the style of the Pioneer and Voyager plaques that carried messages from all humanity. In short, it’s good PR, but PR with heart and substance.
Logistically, the idea is elegant and low-cost. A tiny chip or memory card weighs next to nothing and doesn’t interfere with the spacecraft (often it’s mounted in an out-of-the-way spot on the deck or inside the capsule). The cost of collecting names online and etching or loading them onto a chip is minimal, often sponsored or managed by partner organizations like The Planetary Society. For such a small effort, the returns in public goodwill and educational outreach are enormous. It’s hard to quantify inspiration, but you can see it in the flood of social media posts proudly showing off NASA boarding passes, or the long lists of participants (sometimes entire schools, clubs, or families sign up together). Each name in space represents a person who might feel just a bit more connected to science and exploration. Some of those people – especially kids – might be motivated to pursue STEM careers or become the next generation of explorers because their name flew on a Mars rover.
There’s also a philosophical significance. Space exploration has often been driven by national or commercial interests, but name campaigns cast it in a more humanistic light. They suggest that these voyages aren’t only for the elite astronauts or robots, but for everyone. When the Europa Clipper arrives at Jupiter’s moon carrying 2.6 million names and a poem, or when Artemis II loops around the Moon with possibly tens of millions of names in tow, it’s as if humanity is extending an embrace to these distant places. It transforms cold, metallic spacecraft into vessels of our hopes and dreams. The late Carl Sagan, who helped put a record of Earth’s sounds and music on Voyager, often spoke of the need to consider the cosmic perspective and our place in the universe. In a small way, having your name among millions on a spaceship encourages that perspective – it’s a reminder that we all share in the enterprise of discovery, and that our names (and by extension, our stories) are now part of the narrative of the cosmos.
A Personal Piece of the Cosmos
In the end, the opportunity to send your name to space strikes a beautiful balance between the personal and the collective, the trivial and the profound. On one hand, writing your name on a microchip doesn’t change the trajectory of a spacecraft or alter the scientific data it gathers. Yet, symbolically, it carries tremendous weight for those who participate. It’s a gesture that says: “Count me in. I’m part of this adventure.” For the individual, it’s a quirky form of immortality and a chance to daydream about their tiny footprint in the universe. For society, it’s a source of shared excitement and unity in exploration.
Every time a NASA mission carries our names, it reinforces that space is not just the realm of scientists and astronauts, but a frontier open to everyone’s spirit. A child looking at the Moon can know their name has flown around it. A teacher can point to Mars and tell students their names are sitting on that red soil. These campaigns create countless small connections to space that collectively magnify public passion for exploration. And who knows – a few centuries from now, perhaps colonists on Mars or researchers on Europa will come upon those old name plaques and reflect on the era when people first reached out, name by name, in eager anticipation of a future among the stars.
In a poetic sense, sending our names is a humble first step to sending ourselves. It represents hope that one day humanity will travel en masse to those destinations our names have previewed. Until then, we can take pride and joy in the fact that a part of us – our names, our imaginations – are already out there roaming the Moon, Mars, and beyond, on voyages of discovery. It’s a great idea not because the names themselves accomplish something scientific, but because of what they accomplish in hearts and minds: they invite all of us to dream bigger and feel a little closer to the cosmos. As NASA aptly put it during one Mars mission, “Together, humans and robotics will pioneer Mars and the solar system.” Sending our names is a simple yet powerful way to come along for the ride – and to declare that these journeys of exploration belong to every one of us.
