My Boarding Pass to Mars on NASA's Insight spacecraft

This coming May, NASA will launch its InSight lander to Mars.  It is scheduled to land on the Red Planet in November 2018. InSight stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport.  How long did it take them to come up with that acronym?

In 2015, almost 827,000 people added their names to a microchip that will accompany the lander along with several scientific instruments.  I know, but NASA has to make the whole trip worthwhile.  Now they have added another opportunity to put our names on a second microchip!  Although I get over 300,000,000 frequent flier miles (and can't use them), it is a way to become personally involved in a mission to Mars.

This will be the first mission to explore the interior of Mars.  A seismometer will detect marsquakes (love that term!) and meteor strikes and use this data to study phenomena far below the surface.  InSight also has a drill that will probe deeper into the ground than any previous explorer.

I got my boarding pass to Mars!

Here is the link: https://mars.nasa.gov/syn/insight

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/another-chance-to-put-your-name-on-mars