Muqata in Spaaaaaaaaaace!!!

Heh...just had a flashback to "muppets in space" from the 70s.

Check this out -- NASA is sending the Dawn spacecraft into the asteroid belt, and if you register by the 4rth of Novermber, your name can be sent into space with it!

This way, when aliens find the spaceship, they will have a definitive list of whom to eat when they follow the spaceship's trail back to Earth. You won't have to look for them -- they'll come right to your doorstep! (And if you act now, you get a cool looking certificate, suitable for framing, like the one I just got...)


Want your name on the list? Click here to enter. (Courtesy of PhysOrg.com)

The whole story is like this:

Submitted names will be carried on board NASA's Dawn, the first spacecraft to travel between and scrutinize two distinct worlds. Mission scientists are confident Dawn observations of asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres will answer basic questions about the nature and composition of these celestial wanderers.

"How many chances do you get to fly into the very heart of the asteroid belt?" said Keyur Patel, Dawn project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "When the craft is launched in June 2007, yours and the names of your loved ones can hitch along for the ride and be part of space exploration history."

Dawn will carry a silicon chip containing the names of asteroid, space and other enthusiasts from around the world. People may submit their names for this historic one-way mission by visiting JPL's Dawn Web site now through Nov. 4 at http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov . More than 170,000 people have already signed up for the asteroid belt tour.

Following launch, Dawn will employ an ion engine to propel it during its more than four year, 3-billion-kilometer journey (1.9-billion miles) to its first target – asteroid Vesta. After months of detailed scientific observation of Vesta, Dawn's ion engine will fire up again, and send it on its way for a 2014 rendezvous with Ceres, recently anointed a "dwarf planet" by the International Astronomical Union.

"This campaign will allow people from around the world to become directly involved with Dawn, and through that, become familiar with the mission's science," said University of California Los Angeles professor Dr. Chris Russell, Dawn's principal investigator.

So why not send your name, or your blog into space for posterity?

Worst case, they'll have you for dinner.

Or in my case, they'll tear apart Ramalla looking for someone named Jameel.

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael