posted 06-24-2014 05:04 AM               

Student-led 'Time Capsule to Mars' funding $25M mission by flying photos

The team behind a student-led, private mission to Mars wants to send you to the Red Planet – for just 99 cents.

Time Capsule to Mars (TC2M) is now offering anyone with a computer or cell phone the chance to upload a photo or other digital image to fly onboard its planned trio of 4-inch-wide (10-cm), Mars-bound probes for less than a dollar. As the project's name implies, TC2M hopes to deposit digital archives on the Martian surface for colonists to someday discover.

"Our mission is transporting a time capsule that will carry audio, video and photographic data from millions of people around the world," Emily Briere, TC2M's founder, mission director, and a senior at Duke University in North Carolina, said on Monday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. "People can send in their photo, a picture of their dog or handwritten poem and feel they themselves are going to Mars."