Inside Nasa’s plan to send first painting to the Moon later this year

A LUNAR mission is currently in the works to send the first painting to the Moon sometime in 2022.

The painting heading to space is titled ‘We Rise Together – with the Light of the Moon, and was created by contemporary British Artist Sacha Jafri.

Sacha Jafri’s painting heading to space is titled ‘We Rise Together – with the Light of the Moon’

The mission to bring the artwork to our Moon is being carried out by Selenian – a UAE-based company that specializes in the curation of art in space – in association with Spacebit, Astrobotic, and Nasa through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

The artwork, which is the first official art mission in history, is painted an aerospace-grade aluminum gold plate that is not only resilient to lunar conditions but also everlasting.

“Sacha Jafri’s work will be the first artwork on the Moon of such scale and significance. It will be preserved on the lunar surface, out of reach, forever,” Spacebit’s founder Pavlo Tanasyuk said.

“I believe in the future where the symbiosis of art and engineering will form a new wave of space exploration that will become a powerful tool to inspire, educate and give back to humanity,” he added.

The painting is due to be unveiled at a press conference in Dubai, UAE next week and is expected to feature 88 unique hearts.

The painted hearts, dubbed Jafri ‘Moonheart NFTs,’ will be released to the world as non-fungible tokens, or digital assets.

Also being sold as NFTs is a five-series charitable collection that will immortalize the five stages of the mission, including the rocket launch entering the stratosphere, the Earth circumnavigation, the Moon sling-shot, the Moon landing, and the artwork on the Moon itself.

“Just as Armstrong left the first footprint on the surface of the moon, Selenian is now set to leave the legacy of the moon’s first official artwork by Sacha Jafri on the lunar surface,” said James Khazaei, the Co-Founder of Selenian.

“Our ultimate goal is to be the gateway portal to Space and the Moon for physical and digital art assets, through artworks, NFTs, tokenization, and the Metaverse, in turn giving back to the human community with purpose and utility here on Earth,” Khazaei added.

The landing site of the artwork is expected to become a world heritage landmark.

This artwork mission is additionally significant in that it will mark the US’s first return to the moon since its Apollo mission in 1972.

GettyThis artwork mission will mark the US’s first return to the moon since its Apollo mission in 1972.[/caption]

In other news, Nasa is keeping an eye on three asteroids that are making a ‘close approach’ to Earth this Valentine’s Day.

Astronomers have observed a red giant star dying in real-time for the first time ever.

And, Nasa revealed the first images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.