Most people will bury a time capsule, but a group of brilliant young minds will surely find something more exciting to do with it like sending it off to Mars. That's exactly what a team of students from MIT, Duke University, Stanford University and the University of Connecticut plan to do. They're encoding a digital time capsule with audio clips, videos, photos and messages to send to the red planet on a Cubesat-based spacecraft. But, that's just a small part of what they're trying to accomplish (even if the project's called Time Capsule to Mars): they're also using the opportunity to try out a number of new technologies for space travel. After all, in the words of mission director Emily Briere, the project aims "to remind people we go to space to push forward humanity".
Project Website: http://www.timecapsuletomars.com/
(Score: 3, Funny) by davester666 on Thursday June 26 2014, @04:33PM
we'll be colonizing Mars before any music or movies included will leave copyright protection...and by that time, copyright infringement punishments will be passed on to children and grandchildren...
(Score: 1) by islisis on Thursday June 26 2014, @05:01PM
There may be many people with different definitions on how going to space will push forward humans, but I like to think that to the universe, it's probably just a way to explore itself.
(Score: 3) by Rune of Doom on Thursday June 26 2014, @05:39PM
How long before some well-meaning (or not) group uses a similar approach to deliver a selected group of bacteria, lichen, etc?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @12:21AM
It can't be that great of an environment for mulit-cellular life. Rocks from Earth have hit Mars.