Time is running out to get your name aboard one of two NASA probes bound for the far reaches of space.

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft [image] is taking moniker reservations for its June 2007 launch to study the asteroid Vesta before its 2014 arrival at Ceres [image]—which I think still counts as a dwarf planet though I’ll settle for big, round asteroid.

More than 170,000 people have signed their names to Dawn, an amazing feat for a mission that NASA resurrected from the dead. But you better hurry or you’ll miss the boat. The deadline to sign on is Nov. 4 (that’s Saturday). You can read all about it at NASA’s Dawn mission website: http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov. 

If asteroids aren’t you’re think, there’s always Mars.

NASA’s Phoenix lander is also set to launch spaceward next year in August.

But instead of just carrying the names of we humans, Phoenix will haul a commemorative silica-glass DVD dubbed “Visions of Mars” containing a host of red planet-related works from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Orson Welles’ classic 1938 broadcast of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds” is on there alongside the name of Mars-rapt Percival Lowell and others.

The Planetary Society is providing the Martian multimedia archive—which was originally created for the ill-fated Russian Mars 96 spacecraft—so you can send your name to them at: http://planetary.org/phoenixdvd.

The red planet deadline closes on Feb. 1, 2007.

So hey, a free ride to two asteroids and Mars. Pity there’s no in-flight movie.