From Earth to Infinity: The Unique Art We’ve Launched into Space

By: Jessica Kanzler

Published December 23, 2024

Space exploration conjures images of the functional: clean machinery, matching outfits, the works. Is there any room for art on the final frontier?

Most of what we send to space ends up being beautiful by happenstance. Those fancy astronaut sippy cups are a work of art if only for the cleverness of their design, but that’s not the only thing of beauty to break the atmosphere.

As we’ve ventured farther into the cosmos, something unexpected has happened: we’ve sent art along for the ride. Art and space have long had a curious relationship—a mix of awe, fear, and romanticism. We may have spent our lives looking at the stars and wondering about our place in the universe, but the art we send doesn’t necessarily reflect that.

The art that leaves Earth behind tells a different kind of story, and it’s a little spooky.

A Brief Review of the Unique Art We Sent to Space

Reports vary on exactly how many pieces of art we as a species have sent into space. Art is so subjective that it could be argued that every satellite is a work of art. Have you seen the James Webb Space Telescope? Gorgeous.

But we’re talking about acts of deliberate aesthetic where the form is at least as important as the function. If we draw that line, we can identify a few major pieces of art that have truly broken free of the surly bonds of Earth.

Moon Museum

One of the earliest pieces of space art is called the Moon Museum, but you won’t be jumping low gravity style through this exhibit any time soon. Moon Museum is a tiny ceramic plate that was secretly attached to the Apollo 12 shuttle.

This tiny ceramic canvas features the work of six of the best-known artists of the 60s: Robert Rauschenberg, David Novos, John Chamberlain, Claes Oldenburg, Forrest Myers, and Andy Warhol. Myers drew the pattern in the lower left, and Rauschenberg left a line. Novros drew a black square above Chamberlain’s circuitry diagram. Oldenburg drew a more geometric Mickey Mouse, and Andy Warhol wrote his initials in the shape of what is inarguably a rocket. It’s just a rocket.

Fallen Astronaut

The Fallen Astronaut is an 8.9cm-tall human figurine made of aluminum. It was crafted by Paul Van Hoendonck and placed on the moon by the Apollo 15 crew in 1971. The statue also came with a plaque covered in the names of astronauts and cosmonauts who lost their lives to further space exploration.

Color Calibration Chart

Damien Hirst’s Color Calibration Chart is the first piece of artwork to be sent to another planet. The British Beagle 2 Mars lander carried the spot painting all the way to the red planet, but the mission wa believed to be a failure when Beagle 2 lost contact. It wasn’t until 2015 that NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE camera found the Beagle 2, which had never deployed its solar panels.

The Lunar Codex

The Lunar Codex is the labor of love of physicist Samuel Peralta. It is a time capsule of human achievement split into seven collections carried into space where some collections will remain and others will return.

In total, it’s the work of over 35,000 contemporary artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers from all over the world. Their art was transcribed onto nickel NanoFiche, an analog method of long-term data preservation that can be read with a microscope. 

The Orion, Peregrine, and Nova collections have already launched, with Orion successfully orbiting the moon and returning, Peregrine burning as it re-entered the atmosphere, and Nova landing safely on the moon aboard the Odysseus lander. 

The Serenity, Minerva, Freya, and Polaris collections are scheduled to ride aboard future NASA lunar missions. 

The Golden Record

Possibly the most famous work of art to leave the Earth has also left the solar system. There are two Golden Records riding the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes. These records were the work of a team organized by Carl Sagan. The mission: to represent life on Earth in a way an alien could understand. 

Were an alien to find one of the records, they would discover a unique work of art. Etched onto the cover of the record is a diagram showing how to play the record. The other etchings include binary directions on how to decipher the information encoded in the record and a pulsar map leading to our sun.

Were an alien to follow the directions and decipher the contents of the record, they’d find diagrams of humans eating and drinking, recordings of people saying “hello” in different languages, and a curious recording that sounds a little like fireworks. That would be the scan of Ann Druyan’s brainwaves. This scan was done shortly after Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan had agreed to get married, having fallen in love during the project. 

The Golden Record holds, among other things, directions for an advanced enough alien species to find humanity, a welcome call from the world, and a snapshot of a brain in love.

Space Art Trends: Functional, Afraid, a Little Optimistic

When we look at the art we’ve sent into space, a few themes emerge. First, all of it is functional, but there are a few different things it accomplishes.

Works like the Color Calibration Chart are both a minimalist beauty and a useful tool for scientific experimentation.

The Moon Museum and Lunar Codex fit within a slightly more sinister paradigm. There’s a certain implicit doom in the idea that we need to leave proof in space to show we were once a planet that valued culture and beauty. It’s a beautiful message in a bottle that will hopefully guarantee the best things we’ve made will outlast the worst things we might become.

And then there’s art like the Golden Record, a shiny breadcrumb launched into infinity, hoping there’s life somewhere similar enough to us to translate our love and goodwill and greetings.

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