Want to leave a message for whatever comes next? Here's your chance
KEO is the name of a proposed space time capsule which will be launched in 2010 or 2011
carrying messages from the citizens of present Earth to humanity 50,000 years from now,
when it will reenter Earth's atmosphere.
And what if the Earth were an enormous garden?
And what if we were its gardeners?
And what if Man were an exceptional species?
And what if we were all concerned?
And what if tomorrow, I were to pave the path
for you, descendants of my descendants...
And what if we all began
to pen down our thoughts for our distant grandchildren
to let them witness our lives
And then... what if from this big book,
we began to discover, one page after another,
more about each other...
Every person living on Earth, small, weak, powerful or rich is provided with 4 pages of liberty and equality to pen down his message destined for his faraway great grandchildren.
All the messages received, without undergoing any censorship, will be embarked aboard KEO.
What reflections, what revelations
do your future great grandchildren evoke in you?
What would you wish to tell them about your life, your expectations, your doubts, your desires, your values, your emotions, your dreams?
SEND YOUR MESSAGEKEO is the name of a proposed space time capsule which will be launched in 2010 or 2011 carrying messages
from the citizens of present Earth to humanity 50,000 years from now, when it will reenter Earth's atmosphere.
The KEO project is supported by UNESCO (who voted it "Project of the 21st century"), Hutchison Whampoa
and the European Space Agency, among other institutions. Its name is supposed to represent the three most
frequently used sounds common to the most widely spoken languages today
Personal messages
Every person is invited to write a message addressed to the future inhabitants—the deadline is
December 31, 2009. Messages can be posted via the project's website, or sent by postal mail.
The organizers encourage everybody to gather messages from children, senior citizens and the
illiterate so that every culture and demographic on Earth is represented. The satellite has enough
capacity to carry a four-page message from each of the more than six billion inhabitants on the planet.
Once the satellite is launched, the messages (with personal names removed) will be made freely available on the web.
Other contents
KEO will also carry a diamond that encases a drop of human blood chosen at random and samples of air,
sea water and earth. The DNA of the human genome will be engraved on one of the faces. The satellite
will also carry an astronomical clock that shows the current rotation rates of several pulsars; photographs
of people of all cultures; and "the contemporary Library of Alexandria", an encyclopaedic compendium of current human knowledge.
Technical aspects
The messages and library will be encoded in glass-made radiation-resistant DVDs. Symbolic
instructions in several formats will show the future finders how to build a DVD reader.
The satellite itself is a hollow sphere 80 cm in diameter. The sphere is engraved with a map of
Earth and surrounded by an aluminium layer, a thermal layer and several layers of titanium and
other heavy materials intertwined with vacuum. The sphere is resistant to cosmic radiation,
atmosphere re-entry, space junk impacts etc. For its first few years in orbit, KEO will sport a
pair of wings 10 meters across that will aid in its spotting from Earth. As the satellite enters the
atmosphere, the thermal layer will produce an artificial aurora to give a signal of the satellite's re-entry.
The passive satellite will not carry any communications or propulsion systems. It will be launched by an
Ariane 5 rocket into an orbit 1,800 km high, an altitude that will bring it back to Earth in 500 centuries,
the same amount of time that has elapsed since early humans started to draw in cavern walls.
The satellite has not been built and no contract has been tendered for its construction.
Project history
The KEO project was conceived in 1994 by French artist-scientist Jean-Marc Philippe, a pioneer of space art.
Messages began to be collected, and an initial launch date was set for 2010.
Technical feasibility demonstration and other various delays have moved the launch date to 2010 or 2011.
Similar projects
Several previous spacecraft have included time capsules for humans (or aliens) in the far future.
The Apollo 11 Lunar Module (now on the moon) includes a plaque showing the arrangement of the
Earth's continents in 1969. The LAGEOS satellite (which will re-enter the atmosphere in 8.4 million years)
contains a plaque showing the arrangement of the Earth's continents in the past, present, and future.
Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 both contain plaques that give pictorial information about their time and place of origin.
Most famously, the two Voyager spacecraft each contain a golden record that contains pictures and sounds
of Earth, along with symbolic directions for playing the record and data detailing the location of Earth.
The Pioneers and Voyagers have left the solar system for interstellar space.