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Maybe you can’t write your name in the stars, but you might just get to name
NASA’s next space observatory. The agency is holding a contest to rename the
Space Infrared Telescope Facility, due for launch in July 2002. SIRTF is the
last of NASA’s “Great Observatories”. The other three—the Hubble Space
Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Compton Gamma Ray
Observatory—were named after famous scientists following similar
competitions. If you have a suggestion go to the SIRTF website
(http://sirtf.caltech.edu/namingcontest).
The only proviso is that the honoured individual has to be dead.