MoonArk
Title & Date of artwork Location: MoonArk, permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington D.C.
Materials: Titanium, laser etched sapphire disk, platinum, carbon nanotubes, DNA from a genetically modified goat, a spritz of perfume, nano-sculptures, …
Dimensions: a coca-cola canister
Budget: 7,7 million Dollars
Project description: MoonArk will be a philosophical mini-museum, left on the moon for future explorers to discover. MoonArk was designed in response to the 2007 Google Lunar XPRIZE competition. The competition and its $30 million prize expired in 2018 when teams around the globe failed to land a robotic spacecraft on the moon. The team consists of Carnegie Mellon University professors and students, Astrobotic engineers and robotics experts, NASA scientists and a group of international artists (http://moonarts.org/about/).
Frederik De Wilde is a core member (http://moonarts.org/artist_bios/frederik-dewilde/) of the international MOONARK team (http://moonarts.org/artist_bios/).
MoonArk Image credits:
In 2023, Carnegie Mellon University is sending the first museum to the Moon aboard a lunar lander developed by CMU spin-off company, Astrobotic. Our project called the “MoonArk” is designed for deep time communication as an expression of humanity intended to spark wonderment through poetically entangled visual narratives of the arts, humanities, sciences, and technologies. All images are courtesy of MoonArk. Specific image credits can be provided.
