News KEO Time Capsule: Add Your Message

[Scruce]

The KEO is a time capsule that is scheduled to launch in 2014, and will re-enter the atmosphere of Earth in fifty thousand years. You can add a message on their website that will be encoded on a glass-made radiation-resistant digital videodisk.

Here is some information about the time capsule:

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 deadline for the messages is by the end of 2013. All of the messages received, without undergoing any censorship, will be embarked aboard the KEO.

The link to the page where you can write your message is here. Languages other than English are available here.

 

[mojoey]

'ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.'

 

[Pipcard]

Oh yeah, I've heard about this before in a Cracked article. Especially the "wings".

 

[Izack]

Oh god, the website is awful.

 

[Enjo]

Oh god, the website is awful.

Don't worry, my collegue is working on it
The question is whether KEO staff accepts his design.

 

[Artlav]

...Don't forget to put all the codes for top secret data and plans for nukes into there, or the space pirates won't waste the time retrieving it...

 

[Pipcard]

Oh god, the website is awful.

Looks like it belongs in the late 90s.

 

[RisingFury]

Yay! More space junk!

Well, the last two missions I put my name on failed miserably, so maybe I'll put my name on this and it'll fail...

 

[Alfastar]

Yay! More space junk!

Well, the last two missions I put my name on failed miserably, so maybe I'll put my name on this and it'll fail...

No, I don't will see my message into a sub-orbital trip :lol:

 

[Scav]

I think after the last 33 years on this planet, I'd have this to say to people fifty millenia from now:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.

That might be worth a head-scratch or two.

 

[mojoey]

I think after the last 33 years on this planet, I'd have this to say to people fifty millenia from now:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.

That might be worth a head-scratch or two.

No, try this. Go out to the middle of nowhere, I mean *nowhere* (get creative with this), and bury a non-consequential object, like a clock. Or a copy of a Playboy. Then write a message containing the coordinates to that location, saying it holds all the secrets.

 

[statickid]

wow 6000 characters! so much more luxurious than the measly first and last name we got for curiosity.

 

[N_Molson]

Still a bit short to make a safeguard of your Orbiter addons :hmm:

 

[n122vu]

"All our base are belong to you."

or

Give a great speech telling them to tell everybody about the Earth's riches and wonders, and then tell all the nasty alien conquerors, "It. Is. Protected!"

 

[statickid]

I'll transcribe a copy of the "F-Word Dictionary" for future generations

 

[george7378]

I did this nearly 3 years ago!

 

[mojoey]

"All our base are belong to you."

or

Give a great speech telling them to tell everybody about the Earth's riches and wonders, and then tell all the nasty alien conquerors, "It. Is. Protected!"

Include a Will Smith punching .gif with a caption 'Welcome to Earth!'

 

[sorindafabico]

"If any Homo sapiens [or any descendant of Homo sapiens] is reading this message, mankind is not as dumb as I thought."

 

[mojoey]

'Congrats on not all dying. Except for John. Damnit John.'