You can’t visit other planets (yet), but you can. NASA is sending the names of millions of people to Mars. Unlike those “name a star after yourself” offers, this isn’t a scam; for the low price of “everyone’s tax dollars,” the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will laser-etch your name (or the name of a loved one, pet, or imaginary friend) onto a microchip that will be left behind on a future Mars mission, hopefully within the next few years.

Sending a name to Mars couldn’t be easier. Simply go to NASA’s website, enter the name you want to see on Mars, your country, and your zip code. If you give them your email address, you’ll join NASA’s “frequent flyer” club and get over a billion frequent flyer miles for free. You’ll also get your own “boarding pass” to share on Facebook and Twitter, or to print out and frame.

This isn’t the first time the space agency has airlifted fan names to the Red Planet. The last time NASA did this, 10,932,295 human names were written onto three fingernail-sized silicon chips with an electron beam and attached to the Perseverance rover that landed on Mars in 2020. The names have been on Mars ever since, driving around on the still-active Perseverance, helping search for water and evidence of ancient life, and generally having space adventures. Blessings!

To maintain public interest (and funding), NASA and other space agencies often sponsor outreach programs designed to engage the non-scientist, non-nerd crowd. Sending people's names to distant cosmic locations has proven to be an effective way to generate interest and goodwill.