An ambitious student campaign to send digital memories to Mars reached the United Kingdom for the first time on Saturday. Time Capsule to Mars (TC2M) was present at the National Student Space Conference (NSSC) at the University of Surrey outside of London, and made an appeal for students around the world to join the mission.
The conference, an annual event organized by the UK Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (UKSEDS), is a two-day event that brings together students, academics, and professionals to highlight current issues facing the space sector and create pathways for collaboration.
David Rokeach, an MBA student at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and TC2M’s Business Director, was a featured speaker on Saturday. “These students are a great audience because they’re naturally inclined to be passionate about space exploration,” says David. “But for the average person, space can feel unreachable and intangible. Time Capsule to Mars is giving those people the opportunity to, in a way, leave their own footprint on another planet.”
Time Capsule to Mars, an Explore Mars Inc. BE BOLD project, will be the first student-led and privately-funded mission to Mars. Students at eight universities are designing and building a spacecraft that will travel through space and land on Mars by 2018. People from around the world will send their legacy, memories, and messages through digital uploads for future human explorers to recover on Mars.
The mission coordinates with organizations like UKSEDS to engage students who are ready to get involved and participate in space exploration. “I truly believe that my generation, and these students at this conference, will be the ones to get a human to Mars,” says Ciara McGrath, a PhD student at the Advanced Space Concepts Laboratory of the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and the International Officer of UKSEDS. “Time Capsule to Mars is an incredible way to capture the imagination of these young people and involve them in the first steps towards achieving this goal by sending a target for them to go and retrieve.”
To find out how you can join the mission, visit www.timecapsuletomars.com and follow @timecapsulemars on Twitter or Facebook.
