"Yeah, I sent your name in to NASA ... whaddabout it?!"
The names of more than 600,000 people will be part of the fireworks July 3-4 when Comet Tempel 1 collides with the Deep Impact impactor spacecraft.
When Deep Impact was in its final stages of development, organizers in NASA's Education and Public Outreach program created the Send Your Name to a Comet campaign. The Internet-based effort allowed participants to sign their name up for destruction and print out an official certificate documenting their place on the list.
Although people could submit their names between May 2003 and January 2004, a large number waited until the last minute to sign up.
"In the end they were trying to sign up so fast that it was almost more than the system could take," Roundtree-Brown said. "In all we got about 625,000 names. It was a surprise."
Once the registration closed, the list was burned onto a mini-CD and attached to the spacecraft -- tucked under the thermal blanketing to make sure no harm could come to it.
"It will be vaporized along with the impactor," Roundtree-Brown said.
I got in early and added my entire family to the project. I even included my dogs name!
Now that really makes no sense,....I hope it didn't cost much!
"Yeah, I sent your name in to NASA ... whaddabout it?!"
List of names.
At least the owners of the vehicle will know who to sue for
impact damages.