Title : The Lunar Codex

Source : Colossal

Total No of Words: 551

Expected Reading time: 4.5 minutes

Genre: Art

The global race for the moon is well underway, and as space programs around the world
scramble to explore the lunar surface, another project vies for a tiny spot on the satellite. One of
many endeavors by physicist and spec-fic author Samuel Peralta, the Lunar Codex is projected to
send works by more than 30,000 artists, writers, filmmakers, and more to the moon later this year
for safekeeping.

Split into four capsules with varying launch dates, the collection primarily consists of visual art,
although books, podcasts, poetry, essays, music, and films are present, too. Artists from 158
countries and every continent contributed works, which are stored on either digital memory cards
or a newer, analog technology known as NanoFiche. Similar to microfilm, this archival medium
is lightweight because of its nickel base and can store 150,000 pages of information etched into a
single 8.5 x 11-inch sheet. In a recent interview, Peralta likened the technological innovation to
another apace archive: NASA”s “Golden Record,” which sent audio and images to the moon via
the Voyager in 1977.

The first capsule of the Lunar Codex, the “Orion Collection,” already completed its trip with
NASA’s Artemis I and returned on December 11, 2022. This fall, the remaining three will
launch, with the “Nova Collection” slated to launch toward the Malapert A crater at the lunar
south pole in October or November, the “Peregrine Collection” to the Sinus Viscositati plane in
November or December, and finally, the “Polaris Collection” to the Nobile Crater and lunar
south pole. These will remain on the moon.

Dime-sized nanofiche disks used in Lunar Codex’s Polaris time capsule

Given the archive is intended to offer a glimpse at life today, the Lunar Codex contains works
that are distinctly 2023. There are prints by Ukrainian artist Olesya Dzhurayeva who was forced
to flee Kyiv with her daughters after Russia began its war on the country, along with “New
American Gothic” by Ayana Ross, who won the Bennett Prize for Women Figurative Painters in
2021. Ross’ inclusion, and those of other Bennett Prize finalists, is indicative of Peralta’s focus
on sending work by a more diverse group of artists than earlier missions. “It’s fitting that, in
parallel with Artemis—a program attempting to land the first woman on the Moon—the Lunar
Codex is the first project to launch the works of women artists to the lunar surface,” he says in a
statement, explaining further:People have also pointed out other firsts, including being the first
project to place contemporary film and music on the Moon. It is the first to include work from
disabled artists; the work of artisans in wood, clay, bronze, stone, mosaics, cloth; inked tattoo
work, digital art, spray-painted urban art; and to include poetry from a human-AI collaboration.

The aforementioned earlier missions date back to 1969 with Forrest Myers’ “The Moon
Museum,” which inscribed drawings by Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, David Novros,
John Chamberlain, and Claes Oldenburg onto a ceramic tile. Two years later, Paul van Hoeydonc
created a small aluminum “Fallen Astronaut” sculpture that tagged along with Apollo 15. More
recently, the nonprofit Arch Mission Foundation launched several “Lunar Libraries” containing
everything from a copy of Wikipedia to Isaac Asimov’s sci-fi classic Foundation Trilogy, which,
as shown above, is also aboard the Lunar Codex.