Why Put Your Family Photos on Facebook When You can Put Them on the Moon?

Have you ever thought “I’d like to look up at the night sky and know that somewhere, on the moon, is that picture I took at my Nana’s 90th birthday party?”

Well, now’s your chance.

Astrobotics, a company which appears to specialize in delivering technical equipment to various parts of space, has added a revenue stream: putting your memorabilia on the moon.

It’s called MoonMail.

Astrobotic is now accepting small mementos for inclusion on its first mission to the Moon. These keepsakes will be stored on the Moon for centuries to come.

This is your unique opportunity to commemorate your graduation, holiday, wedding, child’s birth, or loved one’s memory with a lasting symbol we will carry on our lunar lander. Life’s most meaningful moments can be forever linked with the Moon in the night sky.

Be a part of the first commercial lunar landing. Sign up to send your story to the Moon today.

Why only centuries, Astrobotics? Why not billennia? Why can’t you guarantee that my college graduation photo from 2004, where I was pasty-faced and sweaty because I was about to end up in the emergency room (true story; diagnosis: overwork) will be on the moon until the heat death of the universe?

Astrobotics’ website is amazing, not in the least because the entire thing looks like it’s a division of Aperture Science. The first words you see are “BUY SPACE,” and then you realize it’s a pun, they’re not actually selling space, they’re selling space on space. They’re selling you enough inches of moon for you to plonk down your wallet-sized photograph or your late grandmother’s wedding ring.

(Also: how can Astrobotics sell space on the moon? Does Astrobotics own the moon? Did that happen and nobody told me?)

You know that if people are going to put their heirloom wedding rings on the moon, eventually we are going to get an Ocean’s Eleven — no, wait, Moon’s Eleven — scenario where thieves are going to train to become astronauts in order to steal all of those rings and their associated gemstones from the moon.

And now to the real question: how much does MoonMail cost?

$1,660 for a half-inch by half-inch capsule. And so forth.

Despite the whole “send us your family photos” advertising, their pricing guide doesn’t even appear to offer a box large enough to contain a standard 3″ by 5″ photograph. They do, however, show you an image of a micro SD card — do they want us to send that to the moon instead?

I am just tickled at the idea of sending a SD card filled with your family photographs to the moon, so you can look up at the moon at night and think “my family photos are there.” In some ways, SD cards are as real as photographs — they’re the same data, just not yet organized into an interface your eyes can understand — and in other ways, it’s a brilliant con.

Send your memorabilia to the moon! No, not your real memorabilia. The interface on which you store your memorabilia. That’ll do.

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