posted 04-18-2019 04:09 PM               

David Copperfield's Secrets - The Technology Behind His Greatest Illusions - Are Locked in a Vault That Just Crash-Landed on the Moon

The Arch Mission Foundation's Lunar Library believed intact after crash-landing onto Moon's surface

Emmy Award-winning illusionist David Copperfield and the Arch Mission Foundation, today revealed their partnership in a project involving the Lunar Library. Last week, the Lunar Library was aboard SpaceIL's Beresheet lander that crash-landed onto the Moon, but the designed durability of the Lunar Library payload disc, and the known impact information, indicate that the Library is still intact. Once this is confirmed, it will mean that SpaceIL has successfully delivered the first commercial payload, the Lunar Library, to the Moon.

Copperfield has been collaborating with the Arch Mission Foundation, serving as a secret partner and mentor for a future project that is still to be announced. With the announcement of Copperfield's collaboration with the Arch Mission Foundation, they are also revealing that one of the Vaults in the Lunar Library contains the magician's secret technological innovations.

"Magic is the link between science and art - infinite possibilities - shared through new technology and grand storytelling. I create magic to inspire people to dream the impossible, and to look at the world and the future in a different way," said Copperfield. "When I was introduced to the Arch Mission Foundation, I was immediately enamored with the mission to preserve our civilization, and the possibilities of what we might do together."

The Lunar Library is a 30 million page archive created to serve as a backup of planet Earth. Previously announced content in the Lunar Library includes the English version of Wikipedia, a library of 30,000 books including selections from Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive, and the Long Now Foundation Rosetta and PanLex datasets, which provide a linguistic key to 5000 languages with 1.5 billion cross-language translations.

The Library will be regularly updated with additional installments to various destinations around the surface of the Moon. Future missions to update and expand the Lunar Library include partnerships for Moon landings with PTScientists, Astrobotic, and others. The Arch Mission Foundation will also be supporting SpaceIL with their announced Beresheet 2 mission. In addition, the Arch Mission Foundation, David Copperfield, and PTScientists are working together on a secret project.

"David has been instrumental and inspirational to our work, and he shares our deep appreciation for the marriage of science and art," said Nova Spivack, co-founder of the Arch Mission Foundation. "We're thrilled to be able to preserve his ingenious inventions and technologies in the Lunar Library, because we believe they will stimulate innovation in the future. We look forward to our ambitious project together, which is yet to be revealed."

The Lunar Library is an instance of the Billion Year Archive that will serve as a backup to planet Earth. The Billion Year Archive consists of durable, long-term libraries that will be placed across the solar system and on Earth, ensuring that our culture, science, and civilization will be preserved for the distant future.

"One of my heroes is George Méliès, one of the fathers of modern cinema and also a great magician," added Copperfield. "His most famous movie was 'A Trip to the Moon,' which in 1902 visualized people landing on the Moon. It inspired a generation of scientists to actually achieve it, and 70 years later we actually landed on the Moon. Now 50 years later, we're landing magic on the Moon. We're bringing it full circle and I find that kind of poetic."

For more details on the content and making of the Lunar Library, see here and read the detailed white paper.

The Hunt for the Lunar Library

Although the first Lunar Library mission aboard Beresheet crash-landed, the Arch Mission Foundation is leading a team of experts to analyze the impact site and determine an accurate assessment of where exactly the disc containing the Lunar Library is now located on the Moon. You can follow the team's updated technical analysis here and participate on Twitter by following #FindTheLunarLibrary.

"Every indication thus far suggests that the Lunar Library is intact on the Moon, and we appreciate the number of partners that have emerged to help us determine the effect of the impact and begin finding the Lunar Library," said Spivack. "The delivery of the Lunar Library to the surface of the Moon is also an historic achievement and success for the SpaceIL team. We cannot thank them enough for their collaboration and we look forward to our next mission with them in the future."

The analysis team includes top experts from the Arch Mission Advisory Board, as well as others with relevant expertise, to help find the Lunar Libary's location. The group includes Stephen Wolfram, Michael Paul, Bruce Ha, Eric Knight, Shaun Whitehead, Nova Spivack, and others.

The Secret Vaults

In addition to the Lunar Library Vault containing David Copperfield's secrets, the Arch Mission Foundation is also now able to reveal the existence of several other Vaults containing more undisclosed content, to be announced in coordination with partners over the coming months.

The Lunar Library actually contains 25 "Vaults" of content — some of which have been announced (such as Wikipedia) and some which are still secret.

Among the unannounced Vaults in the Library is a music collection, which serves as the start of an expansive, inclusive archive of music from around the world that will be curated and crowdsourced with planned future lunar missions.

Other Vault content in the Lunar Library includes essays from the Genius 100, an active and engaged community of 100 exceptionally imaginative and impactful human beings, including authors, scientists, entrepreneurs, and prominent political figures.

More information about the Music Vault, as well as the other Vaults also included in this instance of the Lunar Library, will be released at a later date.

Sponsors and Partners

The Lunar Library - Genesis Mission with SpaceIL was made possible by a grant from Tzili Charney and The Leon Charney Resolution Center, as well as support from other donors including Magical, The Sanso Trust, PTScientists, The Slavin Family Foundation, Genius 100, and Zambala.

Partners who contributed content or assistance to the project include Genius 100, The Long Now Foundation, Archive.org, Project Gutenberg, NanoArchival, Wolfram Science, the School of Information and Library Science at UNC Chapel Hill, Wikimedia Foundation, as well as a broad set of advisors, content contributors, and other organizations.

Robert Jacobson, an early member of the founding team, and an author and expert on the emerging commercial space industry, commented, "While the Lunar Library may be of value to those in the distant future, it is already yielding practical benefits today — including new technologies, collaborations, and understandings. We are involved with most commercial organizations that are sending anything to a long-term location in space, as well as numerous space agencies around the world. We hope to function as an interdisciplinary hub that connects the space industry with culture and society."

Nick Slavin, Co-Founder of the Arch Mission Foundation, added, "It is a huge milestone to land the first library on another celestial body, but our work has only just begun. An operation of this magnitude requires substantial international participation and support. We hope like-minded governments, NGOs, corporations, and private benefactors will step forward to help us accomplish this important ongoing mission. Backing up the planet is a noble and worthwhile endeavor — but we can't do it alone. Please reach out to us if you can help us substantially."

Matt Hoerl, an early member of the founding team, and Director of Production, said, "What we have planned for the months and years ahead is truly ambitious, and behind the scenes there are hundreds of people involved in The Arch Mission's projects. I congratulate everyone who helped us get to this historic moment, and I look forward to working with all the new people who will be joining our crew as we grow our team."

Nova Spivack added, "The world needs more grand gestures of goodwill today. Sincere appreciation and respect across cultures is something people appreciate and can feel. The Lunar Library is a chance to rise above day-to-day conflicts and remember that we are really all one human family. We hope the Lunar Library will inspire everyone who looks up to the Moon to feel more kinship with the rest of humanity. And we hope the Lunar Library will be a beacon of inspiration and friendship for generations to come. Our civilization's entire legacy is now permanently on the Moon. It's taken millions of years for life on Earth to reach this point. It's truly a milestone."