Lunar crowd funding in 2024? Image: wikimedia commons.

Would you like to have your DNA included in a time capsule on the moon? Cost? Just 50 British pounds. The world’s first lunar landing, the Apollo Program, employed 36,000 civil-service specialists; 376, 000 contract experts, for an annual budget of $5 billion. But Lunar Mission One, a UK-based probe of the moon’s south pole, will forego government budgeting and instead appeal to the public for funding, according to David Iron, project leader. Kickstarter participants can also send selfies, texts, and videos. It is estimated that these messages will survive for one billion years. Also tucked in will be a brief history of human civilization; the time capsule may preserve history, if the human species manages to extinguish life on earth.

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.