ASPIRE One

Bettina Beinhoff

I am a sociolinguist and work extensively on language and identity. As part of my research, I have analysed the contents of the Golden Records from the Voyager space probes, investigated attitudes and language ideologies in different communities and have studied how constructed/invented languages reflect certain qualities (e.g. why Na’vi sounds exotic or why Klingon sounds aggressive). My involvement in the moon message stems from my interest in how humans represent their identities in different contexts. I am particularly interested in the role language and culture play in this. For our moon message, I was therefore keen to address ways of seeing and representing the world that might rely on only a narrow selection of human cultures and languages, and to include a wider range of these. I would very much like to know how humans communicate in a few hundred years’ time (if they still exist). Which languages will they speak, and will any languages still be recognisable to today’s ears? How many different languages will there be and how much variation will there be within each language in terms of dialects and accents? These days we see a greater cultural exchange, facilitated by faster and cheaper transport and by the internet. What kind of an impact will this have for the cultures of future humans? I wonder if our predictions will be right or if humankind will take a different – and hopefully more positive – turn.

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Karen Lewis

I’m a philosophy professor at Barnard College, Columbia University. I work in the philosophy of language, primarily on how context and meaning interact. One of the things I find most interesting about sending a message to future humans or descendants of humans is how to make it so that the recipients will understand the message, even though they may not understand any current human languages or share our social, cultural, or historical context. I wanted to focus in particular on elements of daily life, because they are so often what gets left out of history textbooks. Sending video clips of daily life as it is today is the closest we can get to time travel – to having future humans or human descendants come here today and observe what life is like. Moreover, video gives more context than still images or audio alone, and shows what life is like rather than relying on language. It is incredibly difficult to create a message that is even close to universally understandable, and this is our first attempt. But I do hope that whoever finds this will get a little glimpse into what life around the world was like in 2020-2023.

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Eng Sengsavang

I am an archivist working at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). I work to conserve and provide access to 20^th and 21^st century physical archives (recorded documents in all formats, whether textual, photographic, or audiovisual); and in copying and converting physical records to digital forms for access and long-term preservation, known as digitization. Although I joined this moon mission team late, I have enjoyed discussing and thinking about the challenges of sending a message to the moon for non-humans or to future generations of humans. We are confronted by questions of what it means to be human and how – and whether – to represent the richness and complexity of human experience and societies. As an archivist, I am also interested in humans’ relationship to time: how we construct, imagine, and experience time, the traces we leave, and the technologies and strategies we use to communicate across past, present, and future times. I hope that this message provides a vivid picture of human life and our aspirations for the future, a clue about how humans experienced their everyday lives between the years 2020 to 2023 in the Gregorian calendar. It is not possible for a single group of humans to represent all the diversity of human experience at any given moment across the globe. The approach of this group has been to focus on process – the discussions and debates about the content of a message and its representation to an unknown audience. It has been a fascinating and fun journey.

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Arik Kershenbaum

I am a zoologist at the University of Cambridge and I research animal communication: mostly in wolves, dolphins, and gibbons. I hope those species still exist when this message is received. I am interested in how to communicate between species, or between our species as we are today, and how we will be far in the future. Whether those reading this are our descendants, or beings from another planet, we need to find a way to draw on what we have in common – both in our language, and in our perception of the world. Every human on Earth has seen the Moon and so it seems a natural focus to tie us together, something that we all know and can all understand. I hope these messages also show how we live and what the world is like today. The world will probably be very different when this message is received, but I think you who are reading this will share a lot in common with those of us who wrote this message and who are now long dead.

Anamaria Berea

I am a computational social scientist at George Mason University and I work on machine learning/natural language processing and artificial intelligence applications to space sciences, particularly astrobiology. I am researching communication as a complex living system, from cells to societies, and simulations of human habitats in space (Mars and Moon). As the team leader of this project, I have been honored and fascinated to work with some of the most amazing scientists, humanists, artists and people from all walks of life. It has been a beautiful and humbling experience to take a project of such magnitude and bring it to fruition in only six months. It has been an incredible experiential journey, where I learned more about our humanity and how we can collaborate in truly interdisciplinary teams than I could have in any of my scientific research projects. I am forever grateful to my team and our collaborators for their trust, their dedication, their passion and their support to this project that will give us a tiny place in our interstellar future history. 

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Nick Searra

A simple earthling, continuously filled with excitement and fascination by the notion of communicating across vast distances and time with something entirely different from ourselves. Equally captivating to me is the process of exploring our own humanity and how it transforms our perceptions through the act of reaching out to the unknown. Communication, deeply ingrained in our nature, serves as a gateway to unveiling fresh perspectives and pushing the boundaries of our comprehension of the universe. As we strive to connect with something beyond our own existence, we embark on a journey that challenges our preconceived notions and expands our understanding. Crafting these messages intended for extraterrestrial or future civilizations is a great avenue for expressing creativity and imagination. It grants us the opportunity to contemplate what it means to be human and speculate on how the recipients might interpret and respond to our endeavors. This endeavor will encompass numerous new discoveries, but what truly enriches the experience is the vibrant community of individuals who are part of it. This community shares a common interest and sense of wonder in connecting with the cosmos and I feel very lucky to be a part of that.

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Kamil Rapacz

I am a self-employed artist from Wrocław, Poland. Growing up I was immersed in reading, playing and watching stories about space exploration, alien encounters, and futuristic civilizations. These stories and uniquely crafted worlds had a great influence on me, sparking my imagination and wonder about the possibilities. I joined the Interstellar Foundation and contributed my time and skills to the moon message project because I believe it is important to preserve our legacy and achievements. But being part of this project is also a way to express my curiosity about the universe and our place in it. The following message is intended to communicate with future generations of humans or other intelligent beings who might visit the moon someday. There are many challenges and uncertainties that we face as a species, both on Earth and in space. I know that our message might never be read, or might be misunderstood, or might be irrelevant in the distant future. But I also believe that it is worth trying to create something meaningful and lasting, something that transcends our individual lives and connects us with the past and the future.

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To Whoever or Whatever Reads This - Hello! And Farewell.