From the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle to the many jokes of the Fast and Furious franchise taking their car chases to space, the idea of living on the Moon has long fascinated humanity. This childlike wonder is what inspired artist Mikael Genberg to take art to the moon.
Famed for his house sculpture, which is a miniature form of a typical Dutch family home that has made its rounds around the globe, his latest The Moonhouse will be a brave and literal attempt.
The house, weighing in at 100g, is made of aluminium and will be the first art piece to ever call the Moon home.
“The company behind printing it is on the front line of working with metal, but even they said they can't do it. They tried anyway and they succeeded,” Genberg said. Head of The Moonhouse technical team Emil Vinterhav said it was one of the most complex missions he has worked on in his field.
While the feat is an exciting exploration of what can survive out in space, there also exists the problem of space debris that continues to plague the heavens. While space travel continues to be a common occurrence with stars such as Katy Perry and Gail King catching flak for their “inspiring” summit to the skies recently, there has been a lot of concern about crash landings and random objects that have been left by multiple treks done by the US, Sweden and India.
The Atlantic reported that the moon now hosts several crashed spacecraft, golf balls, American flags, empty packets of space food as well as bags of urine, vomit and faeces. There is reported to be over 200 tons (181,437kg) of human waste floating in space.
SpaceX, alongside its competitors, has been criticised for not only polluting Earth in its exploration of the planet but also space. The Moonhouse art piece is set to fly out with SpaceX.
“It's not litter at all. We think that what we are doing is giving the opportunity of moving your consciousness, even if it's for one small second,” said Genberg.
“Children in schools were getting inspired by the house. They were doing creative stuff such as making chairs that they wanted to be in the house. People sent us songs and poems. If you do something that inspires creativity, then I think it does have a purpose.”
Set to remain there “long after the mission” to space, the red paint is expected to eventually erode. While it is a “very resistant paint” made to withstand extreme levels of heat, Vinterhav explains that red is sensitive to ultraviolet. Size was taken into consideration as well to ensure that The Moonhouse survives hits from micrometeorites.
See the live stream of The Moonhouse's forthcoming landing here.
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