In 1998, Bill Nye (b. 1955) convinced NASA to add a sundial to their future Martian rover. Nye asked University of Washington astronomer Woody Sullivan and machinist Larry Stark to work with Nye's alma mater Cornell University to design and build the first extraterrestrial sundial, dubbed the "MarsDial," for two NASA rovers that landed on Mars in January 2004. The project was designed to help measure colors and time on Mars and to operate as backup to orient the rovers. Nye and Sullivan simultaneously launched a related EarthDial project sponsored by the Planetary Society, in which the public could create their own sundials to match the tracking of time on Mars to Earth.