Uwingu’s 90,000 Mars Messages Sent to NASA Headquarters, Capitol Hill and United Nations

BOULDER, Colo. - Jan. 6, 2015 - PRLog -- Boulder, Colorado—16 December 2014— On November 28^th, space company Uwingu launched the first private radio transmission to Mars, sending an historic almost 90,000 names, messages, and pictures from people on Earth. Now those same messages, running almost 900 printed pages, have been delivered to the NASA Administrator, key space program appropriators in Congress, and the General Secretary of the United Nations, to show support for space exploration.

“Uwingu is excited and proud to let key leaders know how this historic radio transmission symbolizes public interest in space exploration,” said Uwingu founder and CEO, Dr. Alan Stern.

The “Beam Me to Mars” project was designed to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the 28 November 1964 launch of NASA’s Mariner 4 mission—the first successful mission to explore Mars. Like all Uwingu projects, proceeds from Beam Me to Mars contributed to The Uwingu Fund for space research and education grants.

Uwingu’s Beam Me to Mars project was hosted at http://www.uwingu.com. Included in the messages sent to Mars were logos sent for over 25 major space corporations and organizations that supported the project, as well as messages from celebrities, including:

*) Motion picture actors Seth Green and wife Clare Grant

*) Star Trek actor George (“Sulu”) Takei and husband Brad Takei

*) Bill Nye, The Science Guy

*) Former International Space Station commander and media star, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield

*) Commercial astronaut Richard Garriott

*) Former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver

*) Pulitzer winning author and playwright Dava Sobel (Galileo’s Daughter, Longitudes)

*) Author and screenwriter Homer Hickam (The Rocket Boys, October Sky)

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About Uwingu. Uwingu (which means “sky” in Swahili, and is pronounced “oo-wing-goo”) was founded in 2012 and consists of a team of leading astronomers, planetary scientists, former space program executives and educators. Uwingu is a for-profit company dedicated to creating new ways for people to personally connect with space exploration and education while also raising funds to support non-profit organizations working space exploration and astronomy. A pioneer in this industry, Uwingu is currently creating the first crowd-sourced map of Mars. Since the project began in early 2014, individuals have named over 15,000 craters and The Uwingu Fund has already allocated over $100,000 for grants. Visit Uwingu’s website to learn more at www.uwingu.com.