On November 28, Uwingu, a company that raises money for space research and education grants, will send the results of its efforts to collect names, messages, and photos — nearly 90,000 total — to the Red Planet via a radio signal as part of its “Beam Me to Mars” project. The transmission will begin just after 3 p.m. EST in the United States and will be repeated twice at a rate of 1 million bits per second by Universal Space Network.
"Beam Me to Mars" celebrates the 50th anniversary of NASA's Mariner 4 launch, which would become the first successful Mars exploration mission. The radio transmission includes Astronomy's logo as well as a list of all of our subscribers. According to Uwingu, it also features messages from celebrities like Bill Nye, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, Star Trek's George ("Sulu") Takei, and actor Seth Green.
It's probably the closest any of us will ever get to beaming to Mars.