Moon Museum
| Moon Museum | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Artist | John Chamberlain, Forrest Myers, David Novros, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol |
| Year | 1969 |
| Type | ceramic wafer |
| Dimensions | 1.9 cm × 1.3 cm (0.75 in × 0.5 in) |
| Location | Apollo 12 Intrepid landing module, Mare Cognitum |
Moon Museum is a small ceramic wafer three-quarters of an inch by half an inch in size, containing artworks by six prominent artists from the late 1960s. The artists with works in the "museum" are Robert Rauschenberg, David Novros, John Chamberlain, Claes Oldenburg, Forrest Myers and Andy Warhol.
This wafer was supposedly covertly attached to a leg of the Intrepid landing module, and subsequently left on the moon during Apollo 12. The moon museum is considered the first Space Art object. While it is impossible to tell if the Moon Museum is actually on the moon without sending another mission to look, technicians have admitted to placing personal effects onto the Apollo landers, hidden in the layers of gold blankets that wrapped parts of the spacecraft which remained on the moon after the astronauts departed.
The concept for Moon Museum was brainstormed by Forrest "Frosty" Myers. He stated that "My idea was to get six great artists together and make a tiny little museum that would be on the moon." Myers attempted several times to get his project sanctioned by NASA. He claims the agency gave him the runaround and, Myers states, "They never said no, I just could not get them to say anything." Instead of going through the official channels he was forced to take the back route and try to smuggle it on board.
Myers contacted Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), a non-profit group that was linking artists with engineers to create new works. Through E.A.T., Myers was introduced to some scientists from Bell Laboratories, specifically Fred Waldhauer. Using techniques normally used to produce telephone circuits, the scientists etched the drawings Myers had gathered onto small ceramic wafers. Either 16 or 20 of these wafers were created, with one going on the lunar lander and the rest, copies of the original, handed out to the artists and others involved in the project.
When NASA dithered whether the wafer would be allowed onto the module, Waldhauer devised another plan. Waldhauer knew a Grumman Aircraft engineer who was working on the Apollo 12 lander module, and he proved willing to place the wafer on it. Myers asked Waldhauer how he would know if the art actually made it onto the lander, and was told that the person who worked for Grumman would send him a telegram when the wafer was in place. At 3:35 p.m. on November 12, 1969, less than two days before Apollo 12 took off, Myers received a telegram at his house from Cape Canaveral, Florida stating "YOUR ON' A.O.K. ALL SYSTEMS GO," and signed "JOHN F."
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