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Friday, July 11, 2008

My Name was sent to Space by NASA, USA.



10 years ago in 1998, being a super curious and an avid fan of astronomy, I submitted my name to NASA Usa for a space programme namely Stardust NASA Comet Sample Return Mission. The mission's objective was: Placing the names onto the STARDUST spacecraft was a public outreach effort. It allowed people to be personally involved with the STARDUST Mission and helps to promote public interest, awareness and support of the space program. It also provided a way to honor individuals by enabling them to be associated with mankind's most advanced technological endeavor and to be part of the quest of the human species to reach for the stars.

My name, Anira Kassim, is among other 1 million participants all over the world who participated by submitting names to be sent out of Space on STARDUST NASA Spacecraft. My name was engraved (ditulis/dicopkan) on the microchips sent in the STARDUST SPACE SHUTTLE. The microchips with my name engraved on it was sent outta space to orbit the Sun (mengelilingi matahari) . Another set of copies of the chip was placed with STARDUST shuttle that returned back to earth and was kept by NASA. ( refer to http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/overview/microchip/faq.html) The returned microchips are now placed in a major museum, the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Please refer this link to view the names sent to space recently (huhu also my name.. hurrayy) . Pretty cool huh? Who are you 150 years from now..will people on earth still remember you and know your name? Exactly, that's why I did this. I can now see my name at NASA Museam Washington, USA with this space project. Coolnest. My name among others can be viewed in the list here -->
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/overview/microchip/names2k3.html


Refer to the below statement by NASA...

Where are the microchips now?

The microchips are in outer space onboard the STARDUST spacecraft, and also back on Earth. STARDUST was launched on February 7, 1999 carrying the two sets of microchips. Two copies of each chip were installed on the spacecraft (for a total of four chips). One set of microchips is mounted inside the Sample Return Capsule, and was returned back to Earth with the capsule when it landed in Utah on January 15, 2006. The capsule along with the microchips have been transported to the curation facility at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas on January 17, 2006, where they currently reside. The other set of chips is mounted in the spacecraft body and will remain in space forever.

To read more about this NASA Space people's name sent to Space Refer to --> http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/overview/microchip/faq.html

Can you provide more details on how the names were engraved onto the microchips? ( source from NASA website)
Sure. The process is rather technical, but we'll give it a try. First, note that the microchip is not an a electronic part like a computer chip, but is actually a silicon wafer. The names are placed onto the wafer chip through a technique called Electron Beam Lithography. The wafer is 4 inches square initially and comes with a layer of silicon oxide on its surface.. The wafer is coated with a thin photographic film of photo-resist PMMA (pexiglass). The names are stored on a VAX computer and converted into a format usable by the electron beam lithography tool. The data is read and fed into the electron beam tool which engraves the names into the PMMA surface of the wafer chip using a highly-focused electron beam. The names can be written multiple times to the wafer if we want to make multiple copies of the small microchip. The wafer then goes through a process similar to developing film, where the wafer is rinsed in a developer that removesexposed PMMA (or the area written on by the electron beam). The next step is to coat the wafer with a thin metal film (titanium & platinum). This is done by placing it in a vacuum chamber and heating a small amount of the metal, which evaporates and coats the wafer by condensing on it. The wafer chip is then placed in a solvent which dissolves away the remaining PPMA and any metal attached to it, leaving behind the letters of the names. Finally, the wafer is cut up into 1x1 centimeter-sized square chips.

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