New Project Allows Anyone to Send Their Picture to Mars for $0.99

Students at MIT and other large universities in the U.S. are working on creating a time capsule which will be sent to Mars and will contain millions of messages, pictures, audio and video files from people all over the world.

The Time Capsule for Mars is the first student interplanetary mission that is very likely to become a pioneering achievement in the field of space exploration, as it is expected to be the first private Mars mission and possibly the greatest crowd-funded project in history.

Of course, the project has broader goals than just sending messages to Mars. The initial idea was to celebrate the “thirst” of humanity for space exploration in a moment when the prospect of colonizing new planets becomes more and more real. The main goal is to inspire young people from all over the world by giving them the opportunity to send their selfies (or other files and messages) to space. The messages will be transmitted in the form of text, images, audio and video, and the “time capsule” is going to remain on the Red Planet to be found by colonists in the future.

The capsule will be transported to the Red Planet with three small satellites called Cubesats. Students will work with NASA, Boeing and Lockheed Martin to build the capsule and satellites, aimed to develop new advanced and at the same time low-cost technologies in the field of space exploration.

Student groups from the participating universities are supported by a global network of space exploration fans, including former astronauts, aerospace companies and volunteers.

The mission, which is estimated to cost about $ 25 million, will be funded through crowd-funding and, in particular, by charging each participant $ 0.99 for uploading a file (sized up to 10MB).

“Our generation is all about social media and connecting, and the Time Capsule to Mars would be an extension of that. People would feel a real part of it—going into space virtually. We’ll be taking another step to connect Earth and Mars,” said Emily Briere, the creator of the project, mission director and senior student at Duke University. “We want this mission to be about what space means to all humanity, and so we don’t want to be sponsored by a single company.”

The satellites that will deliver time capsule are expected to be launched in 2017. Those who wish to send their message to Mars can already do it today on the official website of the project.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anna LeMind is the owner and lead editor of the website Learning-mind.com, and a staff writer for The Mind Unleashed.

Featured image: Spacecraft concept. (Credit: F. Mier Hicks/Time Capsule to Mars)