NASA announced a contest, which will give American school kids a chance to
\nmake history, by naming two rovers being launched to explore Mars.<\/p>\n
\nThe robotic explorers are part of NASA’s upcoming Mars Exploration Rover (MER)
\nmission. The twin rovers will land at two different locations on the mysterious
\nred planet to explore the surface in search of answers about the history of
\nwater on Mars.<\/p>\n
\nThe NASA “Name the Rovers” contest is a collaborative effort between NASA and
\nthe LEGO Company. The LEGO Company will manage the contest in conjunction with
\nThe Planetary Society. The contest provides students with the unique opportunity
\nto suggest a name for each of the two Mars-bound rovers, temporarily known as
\nMER-A and MER-B. The rovers are scheduled to launch in May and June 2003
\nrespectively. The rovers are scheduled to land on Mars in January 2004.<\/p>\n
\n “We are very excited about providing students with an opportunity to actively
\nparticipate in the next mission to Mars,” said Dave Lavery, Program Executive
\nfor Solar System Exploration at NASA Headquarters. “We are eagerly looking for
\nsome really creative and innovative ideas from the students as they compete to
\nname the next Mars rovers and become part of history.”<\/p>\n
\n“The LEGO Company is dedicated to furthering hands-on discovery, playful
\nlearning, and the boundless frontiers of imagination. Space exploration also
\nembraces these qualities, which is why the LEGO Company is so pleased to partner
\nwith NASA,” said Brad Justus, LEGO Senior Vice President. “By involving children
\nactively in the Mars mission, through the ‘Name the Rovers’ contest and with
\nother related activities, we hope to help excite and inspire the next generation
\nof space explorers, ” he said.<\/p>\n
\nThe NASA “Name the Rovers” contest is open to students 5 to 18 years of age who
\nattend a U.S. school and are enrolled in the Fall 2002 school season.<\/p>\n
\nSubmissions must include suggested names for both rovers and a 50-500 word essay
\njustifying why the students believe the names should be chosen. The contest has
\nmany educational benefits and encourages students to do research for their
\nessays and to learn more about Mars and space exploration.<\/p>\n
\nThe contest is open for submissions through January 31, 2003. NASA will announce
\nthe contest winners prior to launching the rovers in the spring of 2003. <\/p>\n
\nInformation about the contest is available at: http:\/\/www.nametherovers.org<\/p>\n
\nInformation about the Mars Exploration Rovers is at: <\/p>\n
\nhttp:\/\/mars.jpl.nasa.gov\/mer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NASA announced a contest, which will give American school kids a chance to make history, by naming two rovers being launched to explore Mars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":612598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-NASA"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/612598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}