A ticket to the stars by NASA
Life here on planet Earth has seen numerous changes since the last century and dreams that once were fictional can in fact become reality. Your grandparents never had a chance to go anywhere near the Moon, but you now do! How exactly? Read on below, fellow dreamers.
The American space agency, as part of the program to return people to the Moon (Artemis), implements demanding projects, both within NASA itself and in cooperation with numerous private companies.
The return to the Moon is heating up every day. Everyone who has something to add to the race is joining: the Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Israelis, Americans, Russians etc.
Later this year (2024), as a direct precursor to robotic cargo platforms for immediate work and assistance to astronauts, NASA will launch the VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) on the Moon.
VIPER will land in the area around the South Pole with the main task of testing new technologies, communications, control protocols and the last but actually most important: the search for water and ice water.
VIPER has a mass of 430 kg, length and width of 1530 mm, and height of 2450 mm. The planned duration of the mission is one hundred Earth days, slightly more than three lunar days. The rocket is provided by SpaceX (Falcon Heavy), while the lander that will carry out the landing is a product of Astrobotic (Griffin Moon lander).
As far as the public is made aware, education and popularization are an integral and mandatory part of every scientific and technical project of NASA.
The VIPER mission offers a free flight to the Moon to anyone who wants it. Just visit the link.
You need to enter your first and last name, choose your PIN and click on the “submit” icon. The system records your first and last name, automatically generates a “travel ticket” and your name becomes a digital record on the microchip that will be on VIPER when it goes to the Moon.
You can record the ticket for the trip to the Moon as a photo-document on your telecommunication devices or print it out and give it to your girlfriend or boyfriend (if you want to knock them off their feet). Of course, don’t give away your ticket, bring your beloved along too if you don’t want to see the stars in a literal sense. Did you know that here at OSR you can name stars?
There is another new-age fun thing you can try out and that is watch live feeds, but directly from NASA!
By clicking on this link https://science.nasa.gov/mission/viper you can follow the work of engineers on VIPER live.
Those of you who have reached the end of this text and entered your name that VIPER will drive around the Moon, keep in mind that something like this was impossible just a few dozen years ago.
In the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s, your name on the Moon was not an option. Take the opportunity and let’s go on a digital odyssey around our natural satellite at the end of this year!