Send Your Name Around the Moon!

That is right, your name gets to go around the Moon, thanks to NASA. Photo Credit: Overture Entertainment

What if you could go to the Moon without ever leaving campus? Thanks to NASA’s Send Your Name to the Moon campaign, Dean College students now can. Through a partnership between Countdown to Launch and The Dean Daily, posters were placed across campus last week with an intriguing invitation: “Send your name to the Moon!” All students had to do was scan the QR code, sign up, and their name would be included on a flash drive aboard NASA’s upcoming Artemis II mission.

The response was immediate. Within a week of the posters going up, more than 30 students signed on to have their names fly around the Moon aboard the Orion spacecraft. The Artemis II mission, currently targeting launch in 2026, will be the first crewed flight of NASA’s Artemis program. While the astronauts themselves will travel nearly a quarter million miles into space, Dean College’s presence will be carried along digitally in NASA’s passenger list of history.

The author scanning to take a picture of the Moon. Photo Credit: Maximilian Kent

“This is exactly what we want Countdown to Launch to be about,” said Maximilian Kent, creator and executive producer of the series. “Not just reporting on space, but bringing people into it. And I am happy to hear the excitement from students about this opportunity.”

The Artemis program is NASA’s bold return to lunar exploration, with Artemis II as the crucial stepping stone: a 10-day mission sending four astronauts on a lunar flyby. For many Dean students, the idea of having their names on that spacecraft adds a personal connection to one of the most ambitious space projects of this generation.

The posters, featuring a mock “boarding pass” with “Dean College” alongside NASA’s Artemis logo, have already become a talking point around campus. Students scanning the QR code received their own official digital boarding pass from NASA, complete with the words “Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center, Florida” and “Destination: Around the Moon.”

A view of the poster see around Dean College. Photo Credit: Maximilian Kent

As Artemis II prepares to launch humanity back toward the Moon for the first time in over fifty years, Dean College students will be able to say they were part of the mission in their own way. The countdown to the Moon isn’t just happening at NASA, it’s happening right here on campus.

Want to join the mission? You can still send your name around the Moon with Artemis II. Claim your free NASA boarding pass here.