NASA’s Clipper Mission, with planned launch 10 October
As I did not foresee that I will be able to afford or be allowed to do a trip on one of the private spacewalks/ trips that is and will be offered in future [https://www.space.com/spacex-polaris-dawn-first-private-spacewalk], I started 2024 by signing up to hitch a 1.8b miles (2.6b km) ride on NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft through their “Message in a Bottle” campaign
And in case you think… the “Dr” part is a bit showy… well maybe there is a bit of truth in it as I am quite proud that I got this done through my own half century mark on this earth, but another practical reason was I signed up my 88-year-old mother (whose name I share) to join and because computers throw out duplications I made a distinction [that is my story and I stick with it]
So, now my name will be on its way with that of my husband (of 25 years), family and 2.6 million fellow travellers from every country around the world and all continents, who signed up via NASA’s website.
Technicians in the Microdevices Laboratory at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California used an electron beam to stencil all these names onto a dime-size silicon microchip. Each line of text is smaller than 1/1000th the width of a human hair (75 nanometres). The chip was attached to a metal plate engraved with the original poem “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa,” written by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón to celebrate the mission.
In the build up to the launch – Albert (my husband) surprised me recently with a 3D Print model. The story of how he got this done is worth a follow-up by itself…. watch this (earthly) space.
