Here am I floating in a tin can...

I'm not sure how far I'll get in this world. But I know my name has travelled widely in outer space.

When my spyglass is trained just right on a clear night I can see a special little speck in the sky: the Stardust spacecraft.

On board are two tiny microchips with more than a million names, including mine, engraved on them. I signed up many moons ago and recently remembered that I had climbed aboard the mission.

Stardust hurtled into space in early February 1999, bound for Comet Wild 2, which hangs out 390 kilometres from Earth.

It scooped up some cometary materials and plenty of interesting dust particles in a sample capsule, which returned to Earth last year. But the rest of the Stardust craft will remain in space, forever orbiting the sun.

It's good to be along for the ride.