On Friday, Sept. 20, 2019, Abington High School students in Mr. Kitterick’s class got their one-way ticket to Mars. Madelyn O’Leary, a junior at Abington High, said, “It was a super cool experience.”

Students participated in a program launched by NASA. In this program, students send their name to Mars on the 2020 Mars Rover. NASA takes a person’s first name, last name, and email. The student gets a souvenir boarding pass and about 300 million “frequent flyer” points.

When asked why he decided to do this activity with his students, Mr. Kitterick said, “I thought it was clever marketing by NASA to get people interested in human’s journey to Mars.” He liked the idea that students of Abington who get boarding passes from NASA would have their names put on a microchip. Figuratively, “all the students that signed up can say they’re on Mars,” Kitterick said.

Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) in Washington said, “As we get ready to launch this historic Mars mission, we want everyone to share in this journey of exploration.”

If you’d like to participate, you have until 11:59PM today to go to https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/mars2020/.