Still There

According to NASA, my name still roams silently through space high above the lunar surface. As reported on CNN, NASA has found their Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter along with a lost Indian probe in orbit around the moon. Now, from what I can garner, the LRO wasn't lost, it is in fact still operating and its team is in radio contact with it, but I guess this was one of the first times they detected it with ground based radar.

As far as why my name would be on the spacecraft? Well, a year before they launched it, NASA initiated a "Send Your Name to the Moon" project announced on their website. People could submit their names and they would be placed in a microchip and installed on the orbiter. I'm one of them as attested to by this certificate.

I guess the idea is, someday far into the future, either humans or other intelligent life will make use of the quaint early 21st century silicon-based wafer and uncover all 1.6 million names that were programmed into it. Maybe even create some kind of memorial from the names. "Space Dreamers of the Ancient Pioneer Era"

Hopefully, the far future plaque or obsidian wall etched with our names won't be titled something like "Some of the Last Humans Who Lived Just Before their Final World War"