Sending a “summary” of human heritage to the moon

A “condensate” of humanity’s cultural heritage, engraved on disks, will be deposited in a few years on the moon by one of NASA’s Artemis missions, in order to “convey a clear message to future generations” and even potential extraterrestrial civilisations.

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The “Moon Shelter” project, launched this week in partnership with UNESCO and NASA, is inspired by the golden disc launched in 1977 aboard the Voyager space probes, a “bottle in the cosmic sea” that presents life on Earth in the form of images and sounds.

“We want to talk to future humans, perhaps even to an extraterrestrial civilization, to tell them who we are, what we know and what we do,” said Benoit Faivelle, a French engineer who was the owner of the project led by about a dozen people. Scientists and artists.

He said that a capsule with a mass of 1.4 kilograms will be placed on the surface of the moon by a NASA robotic space probe, “in advance in 2027.”

It will contain 24 sapphire discs measuring 10 centimeters in diameter, engraved with micropixel precision – between 3.4 and 7 billion per disc – some of which are manufactured at the Atomic Energy Authority (CEA).

The data, stored analogously, will attempt to paint a “diverse picture of our species”, with a selection of knowledge in science, mathematics, paleontology and art… as well as coding the human genome which gives our “biological recipe”. “. It's all told in text, pictures and diagrams, in a mosaic with multiple reading levels.

“The idea is that information is transmitted over time, with permanent storage, by putting oneself in the place of the archaeologist of the future,” says Jean-Philippe Ozan, an astrophysicist at the National Center for Scientific Research, and one of the initiators of the project.

The scientist adds that, unlike Earth, the moon is a “permanent location” because it has a surface that is resistant to floods and earthquakes, and is far from any “human degradation.”

The contents of the “Moon Shelter” are also intended to be used on Earth as part of exhibitions, conferences and documentaries.