NASA offers another opportunity for people to send name on spacecraft to Mars

NASA is offering another chance for people to send their name to Mars aboard a spacecraft expected to land on the Red Planet in 2018.

The U.S. space agency reports that in 2015 around 827,000 people added their names to a microchip aboard its InSight lander. NASA also offered this participation aboard its Orion spacecraft for 1.38 million people in 2014.

Those who have participated in the past are part of NASA's "frequent flier" program that can be downloaded as a "boarding pass" that shows past participation. Those interested need to submit their names at this link by Nov. 1.

An example of a "boarding pass" that members of the public can download by participating in NASA's Frequent Fliers program. With each NASA mission that flies their names, individuals can accumulate "miles" on their boarding pass.NASA/JPL-Caltech

"Mars continues to excite space enthusiasts of all ages," Bruce Banerdt, InSight mission's principal investigator, said in a NASA news release. "This opportunity lets them become a part of the spacecraft that will study the inside of the Red Planet."

As for the InSight spacecraft and its mission, NASA says it will be the first of its kind to explore the Red Planet's "deep interior." The InSight lander will place a seismometer to detect any Marsquakes and meteor impacts. The lander will also release a "self-hammering" probe that will dig deeper into Mars' surface than ever before, the space agency says in a release.

"InSight would address a fundamental issue of solar system science, not just specific questions about a single planet," NASA writes in a fact sheet. "By studying Mars, InSight would illuminate the earliest evolution of rocky planets, including Earth."

The mission has the goal of improving NASA's understanding of the formation, evolution and history of rocky planets, which includes Earth. NASA says the InSight lander is scheduled to launch for mars from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in May 2018.

NASA's "frequent fliers" will have another chance to get some points and send their name into space aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System.

Orion's Exploration Mission-1 is set for a hopeful unmanned launch in 2019, and is the first in a "broad series" of exploration missions aimed at taking humans deeper into space, and "eventually to Mars." The mission will feature "the most powerful rocket in the world and fly farther than any spacecraft built for humans has ever flown" as it travels thousands of miles past the moon on a three-week trip.

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