SentForever are letting people transmit free messages into deep space through their Web site to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

So you can send a message to extraterrestrials at the speed of light, some 670 million miles per hour.   Mapping its progress is cooler than anything you will write in the message.

After 8 minutes the messages pass by the sun and 5 1/2 hours later pass Pluto. In 14 hours the messages overtake the Voyager 1 probe, the most distant man-made object from Earth, launched by NASA in September 1977.

Photo: Goonhilly dish. Credit: British Telecom; used with permission.

Chris Thomason of SentForever said,  "As a young boy watching Neil Armstrong take that famous first step onto the moon’s surface, I knew I was part of an incredibly emotional moment in history. For the average person there aren’t many moments like that in space exploration any more, so we decided to allow people to create their own emotional experience.

"At SentForever, we allow people to send messages into space and some of the messages sent - especially regarding lost loved ones - are so charged with personal emotion that we know we are helping people in a number of different ways."

He sounds like that guy in the Apple commercial who tells you how important it is he be able to walk on the beach with his iPhone because he charges twice as much for shoes in order to give a pair away.  But did we mention your message reaches the sun in 8 minutes?

Messages are transmitted daily from a specially modified dish at British Telecom’s satellite earth station at Goonhilly Downs in Cornwall, U.K. The messages get weaker over time but they will exist and travel for the rest of eternity.

SentForever.com was established in January 2008 and is based in Reigate, Surrey, U.K. The business is solely involved in eternal communications. To send a message go to the website at http://www.sentforever.com.