Two programs offer students and teachers a chance to actively participate in NASA’s upcoming Mars Explorer Rover missions. The Red Rover Goes to Mars Student Astronaut Team and the Athena Student Interns Program come a couple months after NASA Administrator, Sean O’Keefe, asserted the agency’s renewed commitment to outreach through education. These new programs are an extension of an initiative to increase awareness for NASA projects. As O’Keefe stated in January, when he unveiled the Educator Astronaut Program, “Education has always been a part of NASA’s mission, but we have renewed our commitment to get students excited about science and mathematics.”