Your opportunity to fly to the moon; On the web

Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Huddersfield, England), May 14, 2008

ONLY a select few people will get to step foot on the moon.

But for the rest of us there's the opportunity to send our names on America's next lunar exploration journey.

Nasa is inviting people of all ages to send their names to the moon aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The spacecraft's is scheduled for launch late this year and its year-long mission is to scout out safe landing sites for future manned spacecraft.

The flight is the first step in Nasa's plans to return humans to the moon by 2020.

Nasa's Send Your Name to the Moon Web site enables everyone to participate in the lunar adventure and place their names in orbit around the moon for years to come.

Deputy project manager Cathy Peddie says: "How cool is that?" Few with any sense of romance would disagree.

Participants can submit their information at www.nasa.gov/missionpages/LRO/main to print a certificate and have their name entered into a database.

The database will be placed on a microchip that will be integrated onto the spacecraft.

The deadline for submitting names is June 27.

Wow!

Elsewhere on the web, you might like to spend a bit of time browsing around Antarctica.

The Exploratorium is where real polar scientists tell it like it is: www.exploratorium.edu/poles/ The US Antarctic photo library has lots of pics of penguins: photolibrary.usap.gov What's it like to dive under the ice? These guys know: www.peterbrueggeman.com/nsf/ Did you know Shackleton's hut is still there, preserved by the cold - www.antarctica2000.net/gallery3/gallery3.html More on South Pole exploration: www.south-pole.com Writer Susan Fox Rogers spent six months at the pole: www.susanfoxrogers.com