Swedish artist Mikael Genberg is just a few months away from having an artistic dream fulfilled. His 25-year-long project, called Moonhouse, will soon move from canvas to reality, as he and his team’s model of a traditional red Swedish house is now on its way to the Moon.
It launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket earlier this week and is traveling on board lander RESILIENCE, which is taking a fuel-efficient but longer route to the Moon. So far, everything is proceeding as it should, and the lander is expected to land on the northern hemisphere of the Moon in four and a half months.
“The RESILIENCE lander is performing as we expect it and now following this thrust by the propulsion system is now heading towards a lunar flyby,” Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of ispace, said in a statement. “We are very pleased with the performance of the lander, the subsystems, and of our very dedicated Mission Operations specialists and staff who are busy operating the lander. I want to thank them, all of our employees and stakeholders who are cheering us on during the first steps of this mission.”
The model is attached to ispace’s lunar rover, TENACIOUS; once the rover is on the surface, it will place the little Moonhouse on a previously selected area of the Moon. That moment will be a culmination of not just 25 years of planning by Genberg, but also the work of about 100 people that made it a reality. Among them is the technical team that has worked on a space-travel-proof design for the house.
“Experienced engineers have worked on the Moonhouse’s technical design over the past two years. The house structure has undergone extensive shock and vibration tests to ensure it can withstand all the stresses and challenges it will face during the journey to the moon and survive intact in its new climate,” Emil Vinterhav, head of the Moonhouse technical team, said in a statement. “We have also conducted several functional tests to simulate the landing of the house on the lunar surface.”
“Even just finding a durable red paint for the house is a story in itself,” Vinterhav continued. “Against all odds, we finally managed to identify a paint that met all the strict requirements associated with space operations.”
The little Moonhouse will be a dash of red in the desolate and magnificent monochrome of the Moon.
Genberg described the origin of the project as “a crazy, maybe idiotic, but at the same time, in my mind, really poetic thought to put a red house with white corners on the surface of the moon. And now it’s going to happen.” In the same video on Facebook, he added: “What’s the purpose? It’s art!”
All going well, this is going to be the second art piece on the Moon, following the Moon Museum, a ceramic wafer covertly attached to the leg of Apollo 12.
Source Link: A Tiny Traditional Swedish House Is On Its Way To The Moon
