Lunar Mission One aims to send an unmanned spacecraft to land at the South Pole of the Moon in 2024, the first crowd-funded space exploration mission having raised over $1 million. It plans to drill down 20-100 meters to access 4.5 billion year old lunar rock and leave behind a digital time capsule containing a record of life on Earth and human civilization buried in the borehole. The mission seeks to further understanding of the origins of the Moon, Earth, and solar system as well as inspire education in science worldwide. It will be funded by a private archive where individuals can store personal digital content on the Moon for future generations.

1. On the 17th of December 2014, Lunar Mission One made history becoming the first crowd funded
space exploration mission, raising over $1 million USD over a four week period. Backed by 7,000
people from more than 70 countries, Lunar Mission One is the world’s most inclusive space project to
date – a new lunar mission for everyone.
In 2024, Lunar Mission One aims to make history again by sending an international unmanned robotic
spacecraft to land at the South Pole of the Moon – an area never before explored. The Moon still holds
an overwhelming amount of information about our own planet and the Solar System that we simply
have not yet been able to access.
Now, we aim to do something that has never been done before.
Lunar Mission One Is Unique
Within ten years, we plan to land at the Lunar South Pole and use pioneering technology to drill down
to a depth of at least 20 metres and potentially as deep as 100 metres– many times deeper than ever
done before. One hundred metres is approximately the length of one American football field. This
exploration will enable us to access and analyze lunar rock that is 4.5 billion years old, adding
significantly to our detailed scientific understanding of the Moon, the Earth, the Solar System and the
Milky Way Galaxy.
The project will also develop the 21st Century equivalent of a time capsule containing a ‘public archive’
– a digital record of Life on Earth, including human history and civilisation, and a scientific description of
the biosphere with a database of species. There will also be a private archive, meaning people will be
able to buy their own digital ‘memory boxes’ and send their digital memories to the Moon. This lunar
time capsule will be buried in the borehole, which is no wider than a smartphone screen. The
extraordinary preservation conditions of the borehole mean that what is stored could last a geological
timescale.
Why is this Mission so important?
The Moon, unlike Earth, is largely uncontaminated and therefore holds much more ancient geological
information. Scientists will be able to use this geological data to discover the bombardment history of
the Moon and the Earth. Through the Mission, we will develop a much better understanding of the
origins of the Moon, the Earth and the Solar System.
The spacecraft’s instruments will also measure the local environmental conditions on and above the
lunar surface, enabling an assessment of the Lunar South Pole’s suitability for a future permanently
manned lunar base, which could significantly reduce the cost of future missions. Developing drilling
technology that operates in this extreme and remote environment has positive implications from both a
commercial and environmental perspective, with major improvements being driven in the safety and
efficiency of remote drilling on Earth.

2. Mission Goals
Lunar Mission One has three core ambitions:
• To use pioneering robotic technology to significantly further our understanding of the origins of
the Moon, the Earth and the Solar System.
• To create a global education project to inspire a generation around the world to embrace
science, engineering and humanities.
• To create a comprehensive record of the history of humankind and the biosphere of the Earth.
The Digital Archives
The Public Archive
The public archive will contain a comprehensive record of both the history and civilisation of humankind
and the biosphere of the Earth that will be compiled by a number of different institutions across the
globe. It will cover the history of humankind and our civilisation to date, together with a species
database that describes the Earth's known biodiversity and how it all fits together – from animals and
plants to bacteria, from geology to atmosphere.
We are talking about the opportunity for data gathering on a mass scale. We will create a truly global
database by collecting information from across the Earth. There are several existing databases - such
as Wikimedia and the Internet Archive - that can be merged by professionals, from the humanities to
the life sciences. The public archive will be the first-ever comprehensive record of its kind and will be an
educational tool that will be free for everyone to access.
Schools and educational institutions can use and add to the public archive to promote understanding
and engagement with science, technology, humanities and engineering. Children and young people
can create and share content, advancing knowledge around the world.
The Private Archive
The Private Archive is the basis for funding the project and its space mission. For as little as $5, the
Mission will be funded through global mass participation, meaning anyone from around the world can
be involved. It’s that simple. People will be able to choose what personal content they want to put in the
private digital archive – from a simple message to pictures, photographs, music and videos. There will
also be provision for people to send their DNA code to the Moon, via a physical strand of hair or a
digital record of their DNA. By paying to include information about oneself, family, friends, or
community, supporters can leave their marks for future anthropologists.
Data Preservation and Scientific Understanding
Lunar Mission One is all about preservation and scientific understanding. The compilation and
management of the data records is one of the most challenging aspects of the Mission. The archive’s
technology must be researched and developed, from the way data records should be defined to the
hardware on which it is to be stored, from the sourcing of data to the network security of its compilation.
By engaging with the world’s leading experts in knowledge database creation and preservation, we
expect to create the most comprehensive record of life on Earth now and for future generations.
Projects such as Wikidata, the collaboratively edited knowledge database operated by the Wikimedia
Foundation, can provide a common source of certain basic data types while ensuring the integrity of the
data.
Creating this digital archive is hugely ambitious, tremendously inspired, and made possible by mass
participation on a global scale. It’s truly a lunar mission for everyone.
More information on the Mission can be found at www.LunarMissionOne.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.