I'm on Mars

Back in 2001, as the Mars Rover programs were being finalized, NASA, the Planetary Society, and the LEGO Company partnered in a project called Red Rover Goes to Mars, a project to give hands-on opportunities to students world wide to participate directly in an actual mission to Mars.

One aspect of the project was to send a pair of silica glass DVDs, one for each rover. Each DVD contains 4 million names (the same names on each DVD) from a sign-up campaign held between 2001 and 2004, a secret code (different for each DVD) around the edge of the DVD, and an image of a LEGO Astrobot minifigure on each DVD which contain magnets (one in the center, and one in each foot) to collect Martian dust.

I got my name, along with the rest of my family, in the near-2,000,000s of the certificate numbers. I had forgotten about it until today when I was going through some old papers. Not that it means much, it's just cool thinking that vicariously I'm on Mars.

If aliens discover the rovers and are able to read the DVDs, decipher the language, understand that what they're seeing is a list of names, it still won't tell them who we are or anything about us. Unless, of course, they have access to the internet and Google my name then go to Google Earth and find out where my house is.....