Trip to Mars!

There are certain endeavours which need to be done in the broader interest of mankind, even when there is no guarantee of a commercial payoff. Space exploration is one of such activities. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) - a US government agency has played a stellar role in this aspect. To popularize its activities and increase public interest, it has launched a very unique and interesting proposition - allowing the general public at large to suggest their names to be implanted on a microchip that will be ferried to Mars in March 2016 via its Insight Mission.

I recently registered my name on their website and my boarding pass for this journey is embedded below. For science fans, it is an interesting way of getting to know more about this Insight Mission which aims to gather seismic, temperature and other such readings by drilling on the Martian surface and placing sensors below in a bid to understand how Mars and other planets might have evolved.

So register on the NASA website before September 8 2015 and get your boarding pass as well - after all where else are you going to get a chance to accumulate 297,805,305 airmiles in one go ;-)