Want your mark on another planet? It is just a click away.

You can by submit your name to reach Mars by signing up with NASA. Enthusiasts can now fill up a simple form Send Your Name Insight and their names shall be added to a silicon microchip that will take off to Mars in NASA's InSight Mars lander, scheduled to launch next year.
Submissions will be accepted until September 8.

"By participating in this opportunity to send your name aboard InSight to the Red Planet, you're showing that you're part of that journey and the future of space exploration," said Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

NASA's fly-your-name initiative also comes with "frequent-flier" points to record a participant's personal participation in NASA's journey to Mars, that will feature multiple missions and multiple decades.

The InSight mission offers a second opportunity as such for the fans of space exploration to collect points by flying their names aboard a NASA mission. Last December, the names of 1.38 million people’s names flew on a chip aboard the first flight of NASA's Orion spacecraft, that will carry astronauts to deep space destinations including Mars and an asteroid.

After InSight, the next opportunity to earn frequent-flier points will be NASA's Exploration Mission-1, the first planned test flight bringing together the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule in preparation for human missions to Mars and beyond.

The InSight Mars lander to Mars will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, in March 2016 and land on Mars on September 28, 2016.
While it comes as an attempt to familiarize the mission, this also garners public attention. However, certain philosophers may look at it as good will.

(with agency inputs)
By Sree Teja