An eternal lunar vault for humanity

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sanctuary sample

This prototype 5 cm disc shows what you can expect from Sanctuary. Explore by zooming down to individual pixels. We hope you'll find something interesting.

You'll find stories about fundamental physics, space voyages, planetary calendars, the mystic cord, Type I errors and randomess, music, art and math. The discs that will be sent to the Moon will be 9 cm in diameter and have about 3× as many pixels as this sample.

The Apollo missions brought 12
men to the Moon.

This was more than 50 years ago.
Soon, a probe will be sent to return
to the surface of the Moon.

Onboard will be Sanctuary:
a diverse collection of
knowledge and expression
that explores who we are today.

Sanctuary is a time capsule of information art that will be sent to the Moon. It will be carried to the Moon on the XL-1 lander the module engineered by Masten. It will land on the South Pole of the Moon.

Sanctuary is a modern interpretation of the Universal Elements and Platonic geometry. It draws motivation and inspiration from previous projects to commemorate human knowledge and individuality, such as the original Drake message, Arecibo messages, Pioneer plaque, and Voyager's Golden Record.

Big ideas in tiny spaces

Images, information art and text are seamlessly composed on a giant canvas of pixels stored in 10 sapphire discs.

EPHEMERA AND ETERNITY

The discs are permanent but life is fleeting. Each disc will be accompanied by a custom-designed layer of hand-written paper. What would you write?

World's first genomenauts

The Sanctuary collection will contain fully sequenced and assembled female and male genomes. Our biological recipe.

Sanctuary is collaborative

The discs contain submissions from people of all ages from across the globe.

The Fly With Us To The Moon collection are drawings by children undergoing treatment at hospitals in France. Each child drew the spacecraft that they would take to go to the Moon.

team

The Sanctuary team is a collective of researchers and artists from international institutions and diverse fields of study.

We are active in public outreach at the interface of science and art.

Michael
Benson
Cosmologist
Nathalie Besson
Particle physicist
Benoit Faiveley
Producer & engineer
Mario Freese
Engineer & designer
Martin Krzywinski
Genome scientist & artist
Roland Lehoucq
Astrophysicist
Emmanuel Pietriga
Computer scientist
J.-Sébastien Steyer
Paleontologist
Jean-Philippe Uzan
Cosmologist
Michael
Benson
Author and Artist
Nathalie
Besson
Particle physicist
Benoit
Faiveley
Producer & engineer
Mario
Freese
Engineer & designer
Martin
Krzywinski
Genome scientist & artist
Roland
Lehoucq
Astrophysicist
Emmanuel
Pietriga
Computer scientist
J.-Sébastien
Steyer
Paleontologist
Jean-Philippe
Uzan
Cosmologist

partnering

Add value and support the Sanctuary Project.

We have up to 7 discs for partner content. Speak to the future by etching a disc, leaving your ink, or making a game out of the pixels.

Leave your mark on our cubesat.

We also offer the option of having your message or brand appear on the outer casing of the Sanctuary cubesat that will be mounted on ALINA.Once on the Moon, the rovers will film the container.

▲ Sanctuary cubesat

▲ Outward-facing plaque on cubesat

reach us

Contact us at info@sanctuaryproject.eu or use the contact form below to learn about opportunities of how to be part of the collection.

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our partners

contact

Reach us at info@sanctuaryproject.eu or use the form below.

email
message
 

listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door;
let's go

—ee cummings