
Dear Moon - T-A
https://dearmoon.earth/
======
occamschainsaw
"Some kind of celestial event. No — no words. No words to describe it. Poetry!
They should have sent a poet. So beautiful. So beautiful... I had no idea."[0]

What a beautiful sentiment. This humanizes space travel. I really hope the
team succeeds on this mission, even with delays.

As a kid, I always felt a sense of awe reading about space and space travel.
Now I am in grad school and lost that feeling of awe along the way. The only
times that feeling has come back were during the Rocketman livestream and now
looking at this project.

I am looking forward to the day that we go back on the moon, maybe even build
a base there (Kurzgesagt released a video today about a moon base[1],
coincidence?).

Again, what a noble endeavor, a billionaire taking artists to the moon!

[0] [http://scifiquotes.net/quotes/139_They-Should-Have-Sent-a-
Po...](http://scifiquotes.net/quotes/139_They-Should-Have-Sent-a-Poet) [1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtQkz0aRDe8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtQkz0aRDe8)

~~~
abdullahkhalids
We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long
enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for
the stars. Carl Sagan, Cosmos

~~~
Balgair
What is even more poetic is that the "most used" spaceport in the future is
likely to be on the Somali coast, just north of the Great Rift Valley where
_Homo sapiens saipens_ first evolved and looked out at the sea for the first
time. [0] History, though it does not repeat exactly, certainly does rhyme.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_moder...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans)
(ok, well, maybe that was the Atlantic, not the Indian, but still, Africa)

------
Shank
I was pretty skeptical when I heard that private citizens booked a flight on
Falcon Heavy. When those plans got shelved and these popped up, I had a
similar level of skepticism. I expected it to be some random celebrity that
wanted to go on a fancy tour.

This is anything but that. I feel more than humbled to be wrong. Bringing a
ton of artists on a once in a lifetime trip for inspiration purposes is
selfless, compassionate, and warm. It’s awesome. I’m so glad I was wrong.

~~~
avmich
> on a once in a lifetime trip

AFAIR, Burt Rutan said he wasn't that keen to watch Apollo-11 landing because
he assumed it's soon going to be routine.

So far it wasn't. But why do you think it will not become more routine -
perhaps a lot more routine - this time? Surely one can't count on that - but
we do can dream and we do can bring some of our dreams to reality, even though
we aren't always good with predicting when it'll happen.

~~~
otabdeveloper1
There's literally (yes, literally literally) nothing there on the Moon, and
going there costs more than going to the Mariana Trench.

No, it will not become more routine.

~~~
PopsiclePete
The Moon may be just a stepping stone to greater things. Maybe we "mine" on
it, maybe we use it to more efficiently send things into orbit, maybe just
tourism, who knows? You can't possibly know what possibilities there exist,
right now.

I think we're lucky that ancient mariners didn't listen to the people who told
them "there's literally nothing, nothing, in the Great Water".

~~~
otabdeveloper1
> I think we're lucky that ancient mariners didn't listen to the people who
> told them "there's literally nothing, nothing, in the Great Water".

You're making a false and dishonest equivalency. Those mariners didn't know
what was in the Great Water.

We absolutely do know to a huge degree of precision exactly what is on the
Moon. (A whole bunch of nothing.)

We know more about the Moon than we know about the Mariana Trench. We've
explored the Moon to death already.

~~~
JoshCole
When I watched the NASA administrator meeting in which NASA plans were
discussed, one of the reasons listed for going to the moon was that we have
seen that our understanding of it is not complete. It was not the United
States of America that discovered, for example, that there was water ice on
the moon, though we later confirmed the discovery. Yet this is a critical
insight into its composition which has major implications.

When I watched the NASA administrator meeting in which NASA plans for building
a base on the moon were discussed, one of the reasons listed was also rooted
in discovery. There are many challenges that such a base would face and it is
better to solve them when the Earth is close and rescue is more reasonable
than to go to Mars with those problems not yet understood and solved, since
the time till return from Mars will be measured in months and years rather
than days.

What makes you so stridently disagree that we have more things to learn while
on the moon, when the experts disagree with you? Also, since they do, doesn't
this also make his equivalence a very good one, rather than false? Certainly
the argument that there is more yet to be discovered about the trench does not
refute his claim, only serving to enhance the degree to which claiming there
is nothing is not valid.

------
askafriend
Honestly, this is beautiful. Let's fucking do it.

No seriously...let's do it. We're humans - this is the kind of funny,
beautiful, impossible stuff we can uniquely do.

Capital allocation? Bleh, don't be so boring and uninspired!

~~~
tomcam
How much of your capital do you plan to allocate? And do you plan to allocate
any of mine (i.e., the taxpayer)?

~~~
rbanffy
How about not buying some of those problematic F-35's? Or, maybe, skip the
next invasion of a foreign country. Do you have any idea how much a bomb
costs?

~~~
dylan604
How about not give the uber rich a huge tax break?

~~~
rbanffy
That's also an excellent approach. Preventing evasion through shell companies
would probably be helpful too.

We need to teach our kids that, when the world is exceedingly generous to
them, it's nice to care for the ones it wasn't so nice to.

------
nickhalfasleep
This puts Yusaku Maezawa up there in league with the de Medici's and Borgia's
in terms of patron of the arts.

~~~
dragonwriter
Perhaps in terms of absolute expenditures, but unlikely anything like it in
terms of bang for the buck.

~~~
ridgeguy
You might reserve that evaluation for a century or two.

Arguably, we're still cruising on the de Medicis' and Borgias' investments in
the arts.

~~~
JoshCole
Right. In the optimistic case, people will still be learning about this art
project while living in another galaxy. In terms of scale, there is the
potential for MZ to end up as much more important, rather than on the same
scale as, other patron of the arts. It is far too soon to tell.

------
zherbert
This guy is only worth $3B, he may be spending half of his entire net worth to
make this happen. I hope he inspires the richest billionaires of the world to
fund such lofty ventures.

~~~
adtac
$10M-$20M is more than sufficient for a few generations (in a 100-200 years,
our current understanding of the concept of money might not even be relevant,
so it's pointless to plan for anything more than that). Anything more is just
throwaway cash IMO. If you had the opportunity to become the first private
citizen to go to the moon, you'd be stupid to not cement your legacy like
that.

~~~
markdown
> If you had the opportunity to become the first private citizen to go to the
> moon, you'd be stupid to not cement your legacy like that.

He decided to share the trip, so he won't be "the first private citizen",
_merely_ "one of the first private citizens".

------
isoskeles
Honestly, I don't see how this is any bigger of a deal than going to the moon
in the first place. There is a level of forced sentimentality here, as if a
painter or a musician is going to see something different from a regular
astronaut, because they're just special.

Any time I see something like the level of response somewhere, I can't help
but assume everyone thinks they're saying what they're supposed to say. _"
This is so beautiful, etc."_ It means _I like art_. I'm not an artist (I
didn't take that risk with my way of life), but I _like_ and _can appreciate_
art which may as well be the next best thing, so I will post the comment
saying I almost cried and everyone can know what a
spiritual/sentimental/artistic person I am!

Sorry, don't mean to be cynical. I just don't understand how this is a big big
big deal to cry over. I hope they succeed and make something great out of it
afterward, just some of the comments here seem way, dare I say, over the top.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
> as if a painter or a musician is going to see something different from a
> regular astronaut

A scientist, after years of training, can look at a physical system, break it
down into its component parts, figure out how to model each part using
mathematics, synthesize the models, and then do experiments to confirm the
overall model.

An artist, after years of training, can look at a scene from twenty different
perspectives, understand the emotional impact of each perspective on different
types of human personalities, can select a few that most appeal to them, and
then synthesizes these selected perspectives into one whole coherent art
piece.

If you are not an expert at something, then don't reduce what they can see and
do, to only what you can see and do, and declare that they are doing nothing
interesting.

~~~
lawlessone
Don't reduce artists and scientists to their professions?

Scientists can be artistic and artists can be scientific. They overlap.

~~~
rbanffy
I like to say I write executable poetry.

------
daeken
This may go down in history as the most amazing (and maybe most expensive) art
project of all time. I am just flabbergasted; this is astounding. I sincerely
hope that the BFR comes to fruition in the way SpaceX has been billing it, and
reasonably close in terms of timeline.

~~~
spiralganglion
This is an "art" project because of the media/domains involved, but it's not
an _art_ project.

It's very low-brow, but not the sort of independent low-brow that bursts with
charm and zeal. It's too transactional, too structured, too contextualized,
and too eagerly public. At best, this sort of big-money, one-off commission
leads to the Teleharmonium and EPCOT and the Saatchi gallery, not Schiele or
Baraka or I-Be Area.

If this project succeeds (which I hope it does, since that'll be good for
humanity's efforts to get more active in space), it'll produce some _works
that can be appreciated as art_. But it won't produce classics. People will
forget about the works. The advancement into space will rightfully overshadow
them. The works won't inspire other artists, and they won't advance any
movements. They'll be curiosities studied by space historians, not art
historians.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
I had a friend like you once. On seeing someone just for a brief moment, she
could comment for hours, saying things like "This person will never be rich",
"Oh, she definitely has bad relations with her husband", "Obviously he's the
kind of person that will fail every project". It turned out that most of her
predictions that I could verify turned out false. She got some gut feelings
and choose to follow that, but the data sample at her disposal was too small
and she jumped to the conclusions way too fast.

------
consz
Wouldn't it be easier to train astronauts to be artists than to train artists
to be astronauts?

~~~
adtac
Can you even train artistic talent? Doesn't it require a natural gift that
you're born with?

Not to belittle astronauts, but space travel training is more teachable than
true art.

~~~
felipemnoa
I believe you have to have good taste and take it from there. [1]

[1] Ira Glass quote: > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish
someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we
have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make
stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but
it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still
killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never
get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting,
creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this
special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are
just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal
and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a
deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going
through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be
as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than
anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile.
You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

~~~
perl4ever
Sturgeon's law: 90% of everything is crap.

Ironically, or fittingly, I've been reading a comprehensive collection of his
short stories, because it was impressed on me early in my life that he was a
great author, and I have recently been horrified at how terrible many of his
more obscure ones are.

The interesting thing is that the quality does not simply improve with time
and experience. There are extreme outliers.

~~~
FiatLuxDave
Weird question: I've been trying to find a short story I read years ago, which
I think is by Sturgeon. Is there any chance you have run across it?

In it, an engineer is brought into a war zone, where giant tank-like creatures
are on the edge of overrunning the front lines. The lines must be maintained
in a cave system to keep extracting a valuable mineral. The generals keep
pressuring the engineer for weapons, but he wants to understand the problem
first. After lots of analysis, he directs the troops to destroy a certain
structure. Within days all the tank creatures die. Then the engineer explains
that the cave system is actually the inside of a caterpillar on a cosmic sized
leaf, and the tank creatures were its immune system. Killing the caterpillar
allowed the troops to loot the caterpillar's body in peace.

Ever heard of it? I'm not sure that my memory is completely accurate.

~~~
gluegadget
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killdozer!_(short_story)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killdozer!_\(short_story\))
?

~~~
FiatLuxDave
No, it's not killdozer, but thank you for the reply.

------
stesch
I have the feeling this should be bigger. This was 03:00 localtime for me and
I expected to wake up to headlines about the moon everywhere.

But even here it vanished from the front page. No trends (Germany) on Twitter
or YouTube. No top news on news sites.

My "friends" on Facebook aren't talking about it. My twitter timeline only has
tweets from the obvious accounts (SpaceX, Elon Musk, …) about it.

What happened?

~~~
tomhoward
We've already seen several announcements of civilian space voyages planned for
just far enough into the future that nobody's reputation will be harmed too
much when the timeline quietly expands indefinitely.

The "boy who cried wolf" effect is very much at work here, and quite rightly
IMO.

~~~
TremendousJudge
I mean, the project is cool and all, but it's a guarantee that a rocket that
does not really exist yet will not send people to the moon's orbit in 5 years
time. Anybody arguing differently is mad. This news is like a Molyneux
announcement

------
abledon
Heres the show Elon mentions as inspiring when he was young: "Moon Base Alpha"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNkKCFaqib8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNkKCFaqib8)

~~~
cyberferret
"Space 1999" was one of my favourite TV series when growing up. I looked up at
the moon for a long while on September 13th 1999 and wondered what the earth
would be like if it was missing on the 14th...

Adddendum: I enjoyed the fact that the props used were not traditionally sleek
and glossy like most other sci-fi series. The Eagle Transporters were
utilitarian and multi purpose. The moon buggies they used similarly so. The
space suits seemed to be more modern, yet, true representations of those used
by the first moon walkers. etc.

------
mabbo
It's worth keeping in mind "Elon Time". 2023 is a "no earlier than" date. It's
if everything goes to plan, no new problems arise.

I'd love to see it happen on schedule but I have doubts.

~~~
rsj_hn
Does it matter if it's 2026? Or even 2030?

~~~
saudioger
or 2050 or 2099 or 2250, what's time anyway?

~~~
Casseres
Time is just a concept that distracts us from living life at our own pace.

------
octygen
Am a big fan of Michener and was reading his book Space recently. The
paragraph below came up as two main characters were debating sending people to
the Moon for a price VS sending machines to the Moon AND Mars AND Saturn for
the same price. Felt it was relevant to showcase this initiative by SpaceX as
meaningful for it is the beginning of something bigger.

"Man was the measure of all things, and although it was correct that machines
could perform miracles, they could not enlist the emotional support of the
public. Astronauts could, and he left this confrontation committed to the role
of human beings in space, for without them as a measure, a criterion for
meaning, the program had no viability."

------
shroom
I also think this amazing! On the discussion as to what dollars should be
spent on (tax dollars or private) I recommend listening to Neil deGrasse Tyson
who explains in simple and very well [0]. It's mind blowing when you think
about it really. Such a small fraction of all money in the world and it often
leads to great solutions which we take for granted every day now.

I'm really excited about seeing this succeed and what might come out of it.
How will our world look 10 years from now.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYs8TpFzIPI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYs8TpFzIPI)
(Here on Joe Rogan podcast)

------
maxander
Impressive- it's a sample-return mission. Sending up cameras to capture
photons or sample enclosures to capture bits of dirt is too pedestrian for
SpaceX. Instead they'll send up artists to capture samples of space-ness, to
be studied by humanity back on Earth.

------
reimertz
I’m just fantasizing how it would be like, composing a song on my guitar in
zero gravity while glazing at the stars. Whoever gets the opportunity, I cheer
for you.

~~~
toomanybeersies
Chris Hadfield recorded a cover of Bowie's _Space Oddity_ on the ISS [1],
including playing the guitar in space. It gives me chills every time I listen
to it.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo)

~~~
Crosseye_Jack
Originally they only had permission to have the video on YouTube for a year.

When word got out that it would have to be taken down once the license expired
they managed to get the license extended.

There wasn’t a big “shit show” just Chris’s son saying on Twitter (iirc) that
this was the case and they (him and his dad, iirc the son did the editing on
the video) were just thankful that so many people enjoyed it during the year
it was up.

A few days/weeks later it was back up. Don’t think anyone talked about the
deal but I want to believe that David stepped in himself to pull the strings
needed for it to stay up. I love the original but dam Chris’s cover is a very
close second for me...

~~~
thomasfortes
Bowie is a genius,the song is amazing and still the number one version for me
too, but in terms of art, context matters a lot, and you can't get more
context than space oddity being played in space.

Other song played by Chris and the barenaked ladies that I personally enjoy a
lot is I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing)[0], space related songs being played in
space make them much more special to me.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvAnfi8WpVE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvAnfi8WpVE)

------
tlackemann
This is truly inspiring and I am so happy to witness something like this
happen in my lifetime.

------
nerdbaggy
Are they actually going to the moon if they are only going to orbit it? Sorry
my English isn’t the best

~~~
greglindahl
They aren't going to actually orbit the moon, they're going around the moon.
It's called a "free return trajectory".

This is actually less than Apollo 8 did (edit: only talking about the orbit):
Apollo 8 actually went into lunar orbit with a burn, and then left lunar orbit
with another burn.

However, this is using "orbit" in its formal sense. Most people would look at
the diagram of the spaceship flying around the moon and call it an "orbit".
I'm not going to tell them that they're wrong to say that.

~~~
mikeash
Parabolic and hyperbolic orbits are still orbits.

------
cpsempek
This is amazing and as a moon lover, I cannot wait to see the output.

Odd that Picasso is mentioned in their hypothetical, it seems he didn't care
much for the moon (at least humans landing on it anyhow). See lesson 8.
[https://www.complex.com/style/2012/10/10-life-lessons-we-
can...](https://www.complex.com/style/2012/10/10-life-lessons-we-can-learn-
from-picasso/)

------
vinayms
Also take a refugee and a homeless person from third world who starves
regularly to balance things out. Would they, as they look out of the window,
find their struggles irrelevant after looking at the beauty of the bright blue
blob as it rotates gracefully about itself while also majestically traversing
around the source of life as if paying obeisance to it, as seen against a
stark black background filled with infinite bright dots that don't twinkle
anymore, or would they be heartbroken that rich people around the world are
splurging on such self congratulatory endeavors while millions of people like
them could have had a sliver of dignity added to their existence had these
patrons of futuristic science and tech expanded their horizons by getting real
and looked inwards instead and brought some twinkle in their eyes, or would
they feel something else completely unexpected? Lets find out. No really, lets
find out that as well.

------
js2
Alan Bean would probably approve: “But I'm the only one who can paint the
moon, because I'm the only one who knows whether that's right or not.”

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Bean#Painting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Bean#Painting)

------
feniv
Livestream link of the SpaceX announcement with a lot more details on the BFR
- [https://youtu.be/zu7WJD8vpAQ?t=1712](https://youtu.be/zu7WJD8vpAQ?t=1712)

------
nazri1
If they allow people to vote on which artist to be chosen then my vote would
go to Andy Weir[1] (author of The Martian[2])... but then in his talks he
stated quite clearly of his fear of flying, so ... :D

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Weir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Weir)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_\(film\))

~~~
sobani
But isn't exposure therapy a good way to get rid of your fears? ;)

------
empath75
The director obviously has to be Jim Cameron if his health holds up.

~~~
Tuxer
I'd send denis villeneuve :)

~~~
TY
Thousand times yes.

------
artursapek
As others have said, this is way better than anything I had anticipated this
private citizen arrangement to be. What a wonderful way to kick off human
space travel round 2!

------
jdoliner
Reminds me a little bit of this:
[http://www.povray.org/posters/](http://www.povray.org/posters/)

------
sparkzilla
"They should have sent a poet"

~~~
blhack
This time they are! First thing I thought of too. Almost brought me to tears
when I read what they were doing.

------
nikolay
I honestly thought they are landing on the Moon and got excited... I was a bit
put off when Musk chose a possibly worse design over aesthetics. Unrelated to
him smoking cannabis on the radio show, he always looks a bit high to me. He
was definitely unprepared for this event as well.

------
singuerinc
Set the alarm Yusaku Maezawa: [https://moon-
countdown.netlify.com](https://moon-countdown.netlify.com)

------
jasondebo
I think they should send a couple great sports commentators along with the
artists to give a live play-by-play of the whole thing

------
rsj_hn
This is lunacy on a grand scale!

:P

------
CephalopodMD
I almost cried

------
sidcool
Simply awe inspiring. A moon shot in true sense.

------
iamgopal
Fuck yeah!! We need more mad men like them!!

------
benjismith
This makes me so happy :)

------
mongol
A more fun art project would be if he sent two animals of many species around
the moon.

------
poisonarena
why did this story disappear? only to re appear and then the other story is
gone.. weird stuff

------
Chris_Chambers
Why would you design a site like this? There’s no reason for the content to be
hidden when you scroll to it. Why should the visitor have to wait and see if
anything fades in? Either make it a video presentation or make it a proper
website. Don’t do this weird mixture that’s the worst of both worlds.

------
austenallred
Astounding.

I don’t care what you have to say about Elon Musk’s flaws; he’s the most
inspirational human to have lived in the past fifty years.

I am unabashedly a SpaceX fanboy.

~~~
wilsonnb3
Nelson Mandela? Barack Obama? Martin Luther King Jr? Neil Armstrong? Bill
Gates? Stephen Hawking? Steve Jobs? Rosa Parks?

Elon would be lucky to make the top ten.

~~~
rubicon33
Seriously, Barack Obama? I'm neither republican, not democrat, but you've got
to be kidding me with that recommendation. He was a politician, through and
through. Yes, the first black one, but aside from that he presented very
little that was materially difference from previous politicians. Just being
first at something, given the random nature of the universe, isn't enough to
wow me. Your ability to make things happen, and change the world - of which he
did basically neither - is what wins you respect.

~~~
wilsonnb3
> isn't enough to wow me

I wasn't creating a list of people that wow you, or even a list of people that
wow me.

The metric was "how many people did this person inspire in a positive way?"
and Barack Obama undeniably did that by being the first black POTUS.

~~~
rubicon33
Oh, okay, sorry I didn't realize that the bar was so low to make your list! If
that's the case, why stop at Obama?

[http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2017/8/justin-
biebe...](http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2017/8/justin-bieber-has-
smashes-two-twitter-records-for-his-massive-fan-base-492686)

------
partycoder
You can follow him on Twitter: @yousuck2020

~~~
vatueil
That really is his Twitter handle:
[https://twitter.com/yousuck2020](https://twitter.com/yousuck2020)

------
bovermyer
If I could donate money to this, I would.

Going to look into it.

------
abledon
I hope the musician they choose isn't a pop artist like Justin Bieber or Cardi
B. that would just be such a waste lol.

~~~
saudioger
Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me

I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed

------
ciconia
If only humanity has spent the same energy, vision and resources on what's
happening on f-ing planet earth, things could have looked very different...

~~~
girvo
I believe we can, and should, do both.

------
beilabs
I love this project. it's truly amazing.

The cynic in me wonders about the timing of this to coincide with a certain
lawsuit by the diver...

------
viburnum
This is an expensive, pointless stunt, and all you nerds have you're
priorities screwed up if you think it's a good idea.

~~~
darawk
Life is an expensive, pointless stunt. What is your point?

~~~
viburnum
[https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/03/its-basically-just-
im...](https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/03/its-basically-just-immoral-to-
be-rich)

~~~
darawk
And yet, you're here, commenting on Hackernews, when you could be donating
your computer and time to the poor. Note how the authors stops at 'even
millions' presumably, just shy of the order of magnitude of his own net worth.
Funny how that tends to shake out: "Everyone richer than me is immoral for
keeping their money".

------
tern
What a shame that such a unique opportunity is wasted on such a mediocre
curator. This nouveau-rich collector could have sent a curator of renown in
his place rather than making the project all about himself. Aside from the
fact that he obviously lacks experience or any actual taste, it's widely
considered unacceptable for any curator to highlight themselves in their work
in this way. The exhibition is and should be about the artists and the art,
not the wealth, connections, and boldness of the curator. This will read as
overwhelmingly narcissistic in the art context, which means it will only ever
be seen as a kind of publicity stunt in the same vein as high altitude sky
diving (what if Red Bull repeated the event, but this time the aeronaut jumped
from the balloon with a canvas and oils?) For instance it's laughable that he
mentions Picasso in the first sentence, as if to insinuate that it is
preordained that this project will produce historic works of art.

What's worse, the framing is absurd. What will they make when they return?
Something quite similar to what they made when they left! An artist's practice
is something built over years, not some kind of instantaneous response to a
single experience. Perhaps it will affect the trajectory of their careers –
probably unpredictably for having been associated with this bizarre, self-
aggrandizing project – and perhaps it won't. To prescribe this outcome in
advance of even seeing what happens is boring and totally closes the
possibility of unexpected and interesting outcomes.

I think going to the moon for entirely impractical reasons is itself a
conceptually beautiful act, but it's too bad it's been spoiled in this way.
The story is thus: "rich man pays for himself and a handful of famous people
to be flown around the moon and back." Cool story.

To me, the most interesting part of this is the incredible risk that all of
these people who presumably have much to lose will take together. The true
climax will be when they return safely, or not.

~~~
ridgeguy
I cannot fathom why you find it so necessary to constrain discovery.

None of us knows what these artists will create after their flight. You think
they'll do nothing beyond what they've done before. I think they might be
inspired in ways we can't foresee.

I'm pleased those who are in position to do this are doing it. Maybe it'll be
a bust. Maybe nothing new will come of it. Maybe they'll all die in a fireball
at launch or during re-entry. Maybe the resulting art will eclipse Picasso.

Whatever the result, I'm deeply grateful to everyone involved in this.

~~~
tern
> I cannot fathom why you find it so necessary to constrain discovery.

In turn, I cannot fathom why the face and money behind this project finds it
so necessary to constrain discovery by prescribing the outcome in advance.

> I'm pleased those who are in position to do this are doing it. Maybe it'll
> be a bust. Maybe nothing new will come of it. Maybe they'll all die in a
> fireball at launch or during re-entry. Maybe the resulting art will eclipse
> Picasso.

Yes, this would be an interesting framing for the project!

