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    • International Year of Astronomy 2009
      • 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast
      • Involving the Public
      • Educating the Public
      • Protecting Earth
      • Advancing International Cooperation
      • Planetary Missions Active in 2009
    • Observing Earth
    • Space Advocacy
    • Space Information
  • Extrasolar Planets
  • Innovative Technologies
  • International Mission Participation
  • Mars Exploration
  • Near Earth Objects
  • Search for Extraterrestrial Life
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browse projects: Apophis Mission Design Competition Carl Sagan Fund for the Future Catalog of Exoplanets FINDS Exo-Earths International Year of Astronomy 2009 LIFE Experiment: Phobos LightSail - The Future of Solar Sailing Messages from Earth Observing Earth Pioneer Anomaly Planetary Microphones SETI Optical Telescope SETI Radio Searches SETI@home Shoemaker NEO Grants Space Advocacy Space Information

browse space topics: 2001 Mars Odyssey Asteroids and Comets Cassini-Huygens Chandra X-Ray Observatory Chandrayaan-1 Chang'e 1 Compare the Planets Dawn Deep Impact Earth Extrasolar Planets Genesis Hayabusa (MUSES-C) Hubble Space Telescope Jupiter Kaguya (SELENE) Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Mars Mars Exploration Rovers Mars Express Mars Global Surveyor Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Science Laboratory Mercury MESSENGER Moon Near Earth Objects Neptune New Horizons Past Missions Phoenix Planetary Analogs Planetary Exploration Timelines Pluto and Charon Private Missions Rosetta Saturn Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence SMART-1 SOHO Space Imaging Spitzer Space Telescope Stardust Trans-Neptunian Objects Ulysses Uranus Venus Venus Express Voyager Weekly Planetary Radio Trivia Contest

Projects: International Year of Astronomy 2009

Involving the Public Directly in Space Missions

As the International Year of Astronomy opens, there will be nearly twenty spacecraft exploring the planets and smaller bodies of the solar system or on their way to their destinations, and three more are planned to launch toward Mars and two to the Moon.  Every one of these spacecraft has been paid for out of the pockets of the taxpayers of spacefaring nations, not only Americans and Europeans, but increasingly Asians as well.  The Planetary Society strongly believes that the world's public should not only be told about the lessons learned from these missions, but also be invited to ride along for the adventure.  To that end, we have sponsored projects large and small to facilitate public participation in space exploration.

Click to enlarge > The Phoenix DVD before intallation Billy Jones of Lockheed Martin holds the Phoenix DVD in his hand prior to installing it on the spacecraft. The Planetary Society provided the DVD to the mission for flight to Mars. Credit: KUAT-TV, University of Arizona

Click to enlarge > The Phoenix DVD on Mars This image, from sol 8 of Phoenix' mission to the Martian northern plains, shows the Phoenix DVD sitting on the deck of the lander. The robotic arm scoop, visible in the top of the image, has inadvertently dropped a clod of dirt onto the DVD. Credit: NASA / JPL / UA

One small way we have helped the public feel a sense of ownership of space missions is to facilitate "Messages from Earth" opportunities for the public to send their names and, sometimes, well wishes along with planetary missions.  The oldest of these is still in orbit at Saturn: Cassini carries a DVD with 616,400 handwritten signatures from people in 81 countries, scanned to digital format by Planetary Society volunteers.  The advent of the Internet has made names collection easier, so we sent two DVDs containing four million names each to Mars with the Mars Exploration Rovers, and helped to collect names and messages for many other missions, including Hayabusa, Kaguya, Phoenix, and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.  With Phoenix, the DVD also contained "Visions of Mars," a collection of Mars-inspired literature and art and personal greetings from leading space visionaries of our time.

People who sign up to add their names are offered a printable certificate acknowledging that their name has been logged on to the spacecraft.  It may seem like a small thing, but members of the public who may otherwise have little contact with news and events in space often attach a great deal of emotional significance to the fact that their names (and the names of their family members or pets) are being sent out into the unknown along with a robotic spacecraft.

We have also invited the public to help scientists analyze data sets that are too large for one research group to handle.  We helped to pioneer the practice of distributed computing with the SETI@home project; members of the public were asked to download a "screen saver" for their computers, which would take advantage of computers' idle time to help analyze data from radio telescopes to look for alien signals from space.  We are inviting the public to take a more active role in data analysis through the Stardust@home project.  After completing a short online training session, members of the public are asked to help examine more than 700,000 microscopic scans of the Stardust spacecraft's interstellar dust collection plates, searching for a few dozen micron-sized grains of dust.  To date, only a quarter of the collection plates have been scanned, so plenty more work remains on this project for 2009.