This is planetary radio.

This is planetary radio with Bruce Bats, a little bit out of order.

He will return for what's up in the trivia contest later in today's show as he always does.

But Bruce, you wanted to share some news with the audience before we talk to the student astronauts.

I do indeed.

First, let's talk a little bit about the update on the Spirit Rover. Most

people are probably tracking this. If they're listening to this, you can find out more at planetary.org.

But Spirit is happy and healthy and it's down on its all six wheels and ready to roll off the

lander in the next two or three days after the airing of this show.

So that's good.

And then I have some announcements that regarding the planetary society is on Mars.

We have our DVD that the planetary society along with the LEGO company paid for is on the Spirit Lander and sitting there and

we've got beautiful images on our website carries 4 million names of people who

wanted to send their names to Mars and it has the picture of Bif's darling, our astronaut extraordinary,

first astronaut on Mars in the middle of the DVD and Bif has sent back a secret

coded message which is around the outside of the DVD.

People can go to our website planetary.org to read this always exciting diaries

and to try to crack the secret code. Decode a message from Mars

at planetary.org.

It's tricky, it's challenging,

but you'll get a spiffy certificate if you do it,

and a number of randomly selected people who decoded correctly will receive prizes such as

...