Wapsi Square Forum

William Shatner Wants You to Send Your Name to the Sun on NASA's Historic Solar Probe.
https://www.space.com/39900-william-sha ... html[quote] Your name could soon zoom through the sun's superheated outer atmosphere, just like William Shatner's.

The "Star Trek" actor has signed up to put his name on a microchip that will fly aboard NASA's Parker Solar Probe, which will launch on a historic sun-studying mission this summer. And he wants you to book a seat as well.

"The first-ever spacecraft to the sun, NASA's Parker Solar Probe, will launch this year on a course to orbit through the heat of our star's corona, where temperatures are greater than 1 million degrees," Shatner said in a new NASA video about this public-outreach effort. "The spacecraft will also carry my name to the sun, and your name, and the names of everyone who wants to join this voyage of extreme exploration."[/quote]NASA link: https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/pa ... lar-probe/

Mission Overview

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will be the first-ever mission to "touch" the sun. The spacecraft, about the size of a small car, will travel directly into the sun's atmosphere about 4 million miles from our star's surface. Launch is slated for summer 2018.

I don't see any mention of it so far, but I'm guessing this is the modern equivalent of getting your name on a plaque on a wall of a building, for having donated X amount of money...

The cynic in me would see it as an attempt at crowdsourcing/crowdfunding by NASA... I thought they didn't have much of a budget, anymore, for sending stuff into space...?

Well, truth is, I posted the original link here without much vetting but based on this other link to a submission form:

http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/The- ... me-to-Sun/

I don't see where they are asking for funds. (Esp, given that all you get is a line item burned into the microchip...) <-- very low cost to implement, afaik.

I really think its to drum up public participation, general interest, sense of 'ownership' so to speak.

I just went through the signup process - and was not solicited for funds anywhere. Considering this is sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Physics Labs...not seeing it as a gimme-money gimmick.

Got a very nice certificate - made out to the Sergeant-Major.

Well then, I guess my faith in humanity is restored...

Well, maybe not quite that far, but it's nice to see that the cynic in me was wrong.

And voila: my name is now going to the sun.

lake_wrangler wrote:And voila: my name is now going to the sun.

And if things go wrong, you can be symbolically immolated in the sun!

Is there anywhere to sign up to be buried on the moon?

shadowinthelight wrote:Is there anywhere to sign up to be buried on the moon?

That's SpaceX's thing. Talk to Elon Musk. You might get the time of day if you buy one of his Model 3's.

That’s not gonna happen for a long time. NASA’s Planetary Protection Officer won’t allow it, and most of the rest of the scientific community will come after you with geology hammers and broken pipettes for contaminating a probably near-pristine extraterrestrial environment with terrestrial microbes, tissues, or even with terrestrial cremains.

There’s still lots of learning to be done about the moon and other planets, moons, and solar satellites. The only time you’ll get to be buried on the moon is when the scientists get overridden by commercial or military interests.

Unfortunately, that’s likely to occur long before the scientists are even close to being done. :/

Phooee, don't confuse me with facts.

We can encapsulate the cadaver in a titanium (or otherwise suitable contianer) and impact the package in to the rehegolith deep enough to avoid contamination. Otherwise, International embargo if you don't go as cremains instead.

btw- Spell check, let alone a second pass by a human, played no part in proofreading this post.

TazManiac wrote:Phooee, don't confuse me with facts.

We can encapsulate the cadaver in a titanium (or otherwise suitable contianer) and impact the package in to the rehegolith deep enough to avoid contamination. Otherwise, International embargo if you don't go as cremains instead.

btw- Spell check, let alone a second pass by a human, played no part in proofreading this post.

Nah. You’re forgetting tardigrades and archebacteria. Every rover or probe sent to the surface of a rocky planet has to go through an extremely rigorous decontamination protocol before it is loaded and launched. So, essentially, the only way to be “buried” on another solid celestial body would (or should) be to be cremated andnsterilized to such an extent that only carbon andntrace elements remain, no organic compounds, and to be sealed away in a container that is completely sterilized inside and out.

It’s much easier to just be sent into a gas giant, the temperatures and pressures of their interiors do our job for us, presumably even against Tardigrades.

The currently leading theory on the creation of our moon is that early Earth was hit by another planet, and the moon is a conglomeration of the debris that was kicked up into orbit. So, what we can do is get a whole bunch of bodies of people who want to be sent to the moon, send them up into orbit, fuse them together into one really big mass, launch them at the moon, cause a massive collision, and have the moon break apart and create its own mini-moon in a similar manner! Then we can bury any further bodies on the mini-moon, and leave the other moon alone. Problem solved!

Catawampus wrote:The currently leading theory on the creation of our moon is that early Earth was hit by another planet, and the moon is a conglomeration of the debris that was kicked up into orbit. So, what we can do is get a whole bunch of bodies of people who want to be sent to the moon, send them up into orbit, fuse them together into one really big mass, launch them at the moon, cause a massive collision, and have the moon break apart and create its own mini-moon in a similar manner! Then we can bury any further bodies on the mini-moon, and leave the other moon alone. Problem solved!

And what is your body of evidence for that? Of corpse you should provide attributions.

Just Old Al wrote:And what is your body of evidence for that? Of corpse you should provide attributions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem

A single large mass of human bodies?

See also: A Mole of Moles.

Ew.

GlytchMeister wrote:a probably near-pristine extraterrestrial environment

According to some scientists, by now pretty much everywhere within 30 light-years of earth has had contact with biological samples from earth. Mediated by meteor impacts, solar wind, interstellar dust, comets...

Warrl wrote:

GlytchMeister wrote:a probably near-pristine extraterrestrial environment

According to some scientists, by now pretty much everywhere within 30 light-years of earth has had contact with biological samples from earth. Mediated by meteor impacts, solar wind, interstellar dust, comets...

Huh. I’ve never heard of that before. I’ve heard of life on earth being seeded from elsewhere, but that isn’t the top theory.

Whenever biological contamination was brought up regarding probes or rovers, they always say they are super duper careful to make sure the payload is completely sterilized.

Where did you hear this?

GlytchMeister wrote:

Warrl wrote:

GlytchMeister wrote:a probably near-pristine extraterrestrial environment

According to some scientists, by now pretty much everywhere within 30 light-years of earth has had contact with biological samples from earth. Mediated by meteor impacts, solar wind, interstellar dust, comets...

Huh. I’ve never heard of that before. I’ve heard of life on earth being seeded from elsewhere, but that isn’t the top theory.

Whenever biological contamination was brought up regarding probes or rovers, they always say they are super duper careful to make sure the payload is completely sterilized.

Where did you hear this?

It pretty much follows from the whole panspermia theory: if organic material can somehow traverse the interplanetary medium and come to Earth, then it can successfully leave Earth and travel away by the same means. Of course, finding an actual organism (even a dead one) is very unlikely, but in the last decade or so they've found that space actually has quite a selection of organic chemicals already drifting around in it: amino acids, sugars, nucleobases, and who knows what else. The question, then, is how to figure out if an organic molecule that you find drifting around Pluto came from Earth, or came from elsewhere.

Space agencies do take all sorts of precautions to try to prevent unintentional artificial spreading of organic material from Earth, but this would probably be stuff that is spread via completely natural processes and has been going on since long before humans existed. Probably since well before mammals existed, or even multicellular life.

There's no doubt that material is naturally transferred off planet (we have found Martian rocks on Earth, after all), and there's no particular reason why some organic molecules couldn't be included in with the other stuff. And of course, solar wind and comets and all those other processes could scatter it all over the cosmos. But just what types of organic materials could be involved, how well they'd survive the process intact, whether or not they initially formed in space and traveled to planets or the other way around, and what that all means for abiogenesis or anything else is highly debatable.

Catawampus wrote:There's no doubt that material is naturally transferred off planet (we have found Martian rocks on Earth, after all), and there's no particular reason why some organic molecules couldn't be included in with the other stuff. And of course, solar wind and comets and all those other processes could scatter it all over the cosmos. But just what types of organic materials could be involved, how well they'd survive the process intact, whether or not they initially formed in space and traveled to planets or the other way around, and what that all means for abiogenesis or anything else is highly debatable.

The asteroid which slammed down in what is now Mexico (northern Yucatan, specifically) 65 million years or so ago, was certainly enough to knock a lot of material into Earth orbit and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it lsunched some up at speeds exceeding Earth escape velocity.

This material would have probably included at least some amount of thoroughly mashed dinosaurs and related species. The impact would have reduced them to the consistency of custard. In that form, who knows how far Earth's biological heritage might have traveled.

Cosmic custard from Mexico... now, I know I didn't just invent flanspermia theory, but I rather wish that I had.