Sending Religious Texts to the Moon

image by Maria Camila Duque

According to NewScientist, we will be delivering religious texts to the Moon. (See Earth's backup: Sending Religious Texts to the Moon.) Apparently, Israel will be sending a Torah there to join the Bible, which the Apollo 15 mission left behind. (Where did they put it, I wonder?) Next come the I-Ching and the Vedas.

I enjoy this idea because it acknowledges the eventual demise of everything we know, while shamelessly engaging our shared impulse to live on, somehow, in ridiculous, creative ways. I also appreciate good record-keeping. This grand nod toward self-preservation makes the Moon an archive--a library not only for our physical exploits and outmoded space gear, but now for intentionally-placed items.

While this gesture arises from rampant anthropocentrism, it opens the horizon for new ways of engaging the Moon. Other than, say,  removing its "resources," thinking of the Moon in terms of resources, bombing it like a bunch sixth-grade boys (to see if we can take stuff from deeper down!), and leaving our trash there, framed as "relics" for future generations.

The good-natured engineers of team SpaceIL from Israel (the country spearheading the Torah-on-the-Moon project) said they'd like to bring the Moon a plate of hummus. Serving food to the Moon is a different act altogether. There's nothing in it for us, except the warm glow of whimsical giving, which must be a pinnacle of human ingenuity. And while not everyone agrees on the value of religious texts (or even human-preservation), I think we can all agree on food.