313/11:35:12 CDR And every one of them did his or her job to the utmost. To those people, we give a special thank you, and to all the other people that are listening and watching tonight. And finally we have to remember those crew, those astronauts, who have lost their lives in the course of our space program. Here I want to remember both Russians and Americans. I want to tell you that I begrudge every one of those lives lost, and no such price is worth paying. But by their sacrifice, those brave men and women have made today, this mission, possible. God bless you. And now Ralph is going to show you something, the marker we’re intending to leave on the surface of Mars. Ralph?

313/11:35:45 MMP I have it. I’ll hold it up to the camera. I hope you can see that. Maybe if I turn it a little. For those who haven’t seen it, I’ll describe the marker. The marker is a disk of diamond, a little like a coin, about an inch across and maybe an eighth of an inch thick. It is a single-crystal diamond. An excimer laser was used to cut a message into the diamond, creating a layer of graphite in there, with a layer of diamond deposited on the top. The marker has been manufactured of diamond because that is the most durable material we know; the marker could survive for millions of years, long after our MEM and our other artifacts have been destroyed. As you know this is the only Mars flight planned for the foreseeable future. But the marker is like a time capsule, to people who may follow us to Mars; and it is, perhaps, a message to future life on Mars, to sentient beings who may emerge there some day. The marker is a little like a microfiche, with a lot of information stored on it, mostly too small for me to make out. But we have here greetings from all the nations of the Earth, and a map of the Solar System as it exists today, and information about the biological composition of human beings. And, embedded in the diamond, we have small samples of Earth rock, and of Moon rock, and human tissue. And, also on here, there is a list of all four hundred thousand Americans who have contributed to Project Ares. We think this is a fitting thing to leave there, on Mars, as a memorial of our mission.

313/11:37:07 CDR Okay. Natalie, I believe you’re going to tell the folks about our call signs for the rest of this mission.

313/11:37:11 MSP Thank you. I know that sometimes our space-age jargon confuses the hell out of people.

313/11:37:15 CDR Hot mike.