Imagine recording a message that will traverse through outer space for years and years... 50,000 years, to be precise, and then return to Earth so that our descendents can read about the way we were. If that sounds like a fairy tale or science fiction, think again. It is as real as reading this article! Project KEO is about a satellite doing just that: traversing through space for the next 500 centuries, carrying information, images, and messages from present-day humans, then returning to touch base with Planet Earth so that our descendents will know how life on earth was in 2002 CE. Project KEO has invited messages from all over the world till the end of this year. These messages will be loaded on to the satellite before the satellite is launched into space at the end of AD 2003. The idea behind Project KEO is to transmit the messages of ordinary people living on Earth today to our descendents, telling them whatever it is that they wish to convey. French scientist Jean-Marc Philippe, who conceptualised the project and is president of Programme KEO, said different languages are welcome. "After all, the word 'keo' [was chosen] because its pronunciation is the same in all the world's languages," he explained. The KEO project has been built free by some of Europe's leading space agencies, and, according to a press statement, seeks to fuse the boundaries of scientific endeavour and artistic experimentation. The project will be the largest collective artwork ever undertaken in the history of humanity, and UNESCO has designated KEO as the 'Project of the 21st century'. The spherical KEO satellite has several anti-shock, anti-cosmic, anti-debris, anti-meteoric and thermal shields that will protect it during its 50,000-year-long space odyssey. It shall be adorned with wings that will flutter in response to temperature variations in outer space. The influence of planetary and lunar attraction, and the laws of ballistics, will make it return to Earth. Within the core of the satellite will be stored the most important gift: frescoes of messages (digitised and stored on glass discs), the Library of Alexandria (a description of our time, level of development, body of knowledge, state of our planet, and today's living species), an astronomical clock, portraits of human beings as they look today, and a diamond enclosing samples of air, water, soil, and human blood. These materials, it is hoped, will help our descendents understand how humans lived 50,000 years before their time. According to Philippe, the appearance of the human species began five million years ago and man first produced tools 2.5 million years ago. Then, about 500,000 years ago, man harnessed fire; 100,000 years ago he constructed his first sepulchre. "And it was 50,000 years ago when man invented art. And hence, we are timing KEO's return after 50,000 years." But how will our future descendents read our messages? "It is evident that what is a must in our technology today --- a laser reader --- will be obsolete in the future," said Philippe. "And due to its volume and innate fragility, a DVD disk reader cannot be included in KEO's payload. Therefore we are working on creating diagrams bearing simple symbolic explanations to construct a DVD disk reader in order to make it possible for our descendents to access the contents of the discs. Following the example of the Rosetta Stone, this information will be repeatedly made available to them such that it is clear and easy to decode." KEO has received messages in 60 different languages from 181 counties so far and by the end of 2003, when it sets out on its journey through space, it will have even more messages in many more languages. http://www.keo.org/
it's a pity I can not upload my mind therePlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! a copy at least but the project is really cool much better than all those nuclear rocket tests edit to add - now I just have to think of some really good text from myself. Thus I will live 50 000 years (very few have achieved that their words live on for a ten times smaller ammount of time)
I am definatly doing this, but I'm gonna make a rough copy and edit it over the next week or so at college. I just hope theres an Earth left in 50,000 years time
you shouldn't be so sure about our current civilization our planet will die only when the sun turns into a red giant - If we wouldn't have moved earth to another solar system by then
Nice idea. I wonder if it will work. Glass is an enduring material, through fragile to shock and wear. It is not so much the material that I wonder about. It is the recording method. How will it will be affected by the raditation of deep space, where there is no magnetic protection field or atmosphere to protect it. We haven't been out there. We can only guess till we do go what the enviroment is like. (Minus what we detect remotely.) We are sure that dust grains exist, which should make one heck of an impact should it hit an object. What other things do we not know of or haven't thought to look for? This seems much the same idea as time capsules, only theorically it could be more enduring. It will be an interesting experiment. Wish we could all be here to see it return.
sending blood through space where aliens can find them and use them to create horrific monster human beings..not good Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
spookz One vital piece of information which I could not find on the website is what trajectory the satellite will take which will allow it to return to Earth in 50K years. How will it be controlled if it goes off course ?
I think it wouldn't be controlled or you had to make a control/monitoring program for a time period of 50 000! years.
No one's going to spend half a billion dollar to send a sattelite into space just to tell people in the future what they had for lunch. So,...what's the real reason they're doing it?
It doesn't sound like they are going to use this, but in 1997, NASA sent a space probe called Deep Space 1 out to test 12 (I think) new technologies. One was self guidance...it travels by the stars...and it passed with flying colors.
No, grazzhoppa. Just a healthy, inquisitive mind. You might say that in a lot of cases I'm skeptical of the skeptics. I also know, through direct experience, that whenever big money is involved in anything there is generally a reason for it and it's not often altruistic.
Talk about self-aggrandizement and over-estimation. Skeptical of skeptics? More like: Confusion Confucius.
Believing one's self to have a healthy and inquisitive mind is a form of aggrandizement? Gee Whiz, Mr.G., what kind of mind do you think you have? Wilted and closed?
