Sanctuary on The Moon Time Capsule with Information About Humanity

After years of work, collaboration and research, this news marks the official launch of Sanctuary on the Moon, a mission to deliver a time capsule with information about humanity to the moon surface, as part of NASA‘s ambitious ARTEMIS CLPS program.

Disc ‘Space’ 3,4 billion pixels of sapphire disc mean that enormous quantity of information

Lunar project in partnership with NASA
Imagined by French engineer Benoit Faiveley and his team of international scientists, researchers, designers and artists, the project consists of engraving 24 sapphire discs with ‘the very essence of humanity’. To ensure the capsule’s solidity and durability on the Moon for many years, a container will be designed to meet all the space certifications required by NASA.

“We are delighted to take Sanctuary to the Moon“, says Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator, NASA, for Exploration in NASA’s Science Mission directorate. “We believe that this internationally curated repository of knowledge on the Moon will serve as an inspiration today and for many generations to come.”

Sanctuary will be delivered to the Moon’s surface using an automatic space probe from its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contract from NASA.

Michael Benson, author, historian and Sanctuary team member, adds: “Sanctuary’s trajectory is into space, but equally importantly, it’s into deepest cosmic time. With its ancient surface impervious to flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes, the Moon is an ideal location for such an archival time capsule”.

Multidisciplinary team of experts
Sanctuary is made up of a multidisciplinary team of 11 renowned scientists, engineers, astrophysicists, paleontologists, cosmologists and artists. It has also received the support of organizations such as CNES, CEA, INRIA, BCGSC and UNESCO. Each of these experts and agencies are indispensable parts of the project’s design and development.

The Sanctuary On The Moon project is above all a story of sharing knowledge between civilisations. It aims to pass on an intelligible message to future generations of humans, but also to other intelligent life forms, through universal symbols of our knowledge and culture.

Benoit Faiveley, founder of The Sanctuary Project gives The Sanctuary Disc visual check at CEA Leti Grenoble, France
(Photo: Benedict Redgrove)

Faiveley explains: “We hope Sanctuary will constitute a ‘cosmic hello’ to our descendants or perhaps even visitors from elsewhere. It will be a variegated portrait of our species engraved in micropixels – up to 7 billion per disc”.

The discs are currently being engraved at the French alternative energies and atomic energy commission (CEA).

Faiveley adds: “Most of the material is not merely presented. it is effectively told in narrative threads by way of text, images, diagrams and data representation. there are important examples from astrophysics, particle physics, astronomy and planetary science.”

Who we are, what we know, what we do: humanist selection of our legacy

Click to enlarge

The discs will not only include examples of mathematics, culture, paleontology, art and science but also the human genome. this selection of our human, cultural and scientific legacy has been made with the ambition of telling the story of who we are, what we know and what we do for the first time in history, the collective human ‘recipe’ in the form of male and female genomes will be taken to another world. the sequencing was done at the British Columbia Genome sciences Centre in Vancouver, Canada. the ‘Genomenauts’ were chosen through a doubleblind selection process.

The sanctuary project is supported by UNESCO, and part of this time capsule will be dedicated to UNESCO’s designated sites such as world heritage and biosphere reserves, as well as to key international UNESCO declarations on bioethics and the human genome, serving as a testament to our collective history, culture and legacy.

Adama Pam, chief archivist, UNESCO, said: “We have always supported new and ambitious ideas. sanctuary on the moon resonates with UNESCO’s ongoing commitment to education, science, and culture, and our mission to share our knowledge of humanity’s intellectual and moral achievements.”

Faiveley concludes: “The sanctuary project is a message for the very long term. we want future explorers to step back in time and join us in our exploration of ourselves, our world and our epoch.”

Within the coming two years, the sanctuary team will include more and more original content that will also be exploited in different exhibitions, conferences and documentaries.

Technology information: Arnano.fr