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A New Brunswick author will soon have her work featured on the moon.
Jennifer Shelby’s short story collection, Borrowed Wings and other stories, will be included in the the next trip as part of something called the Lunar Codex — an archive of cultural works from across the globe, launched via NASA’s Artemis program.
“Even now when I look up at the moon, I kind of smile to myself, because it’s like just a really cool, fuzzy feeling inside,” Shelby said.
But the physical book won’t just be dropped on the surface of the moon.
Picture the entire Bible etched into a square of quartz or book trilogies carved into a few inches of nickel, readable only beneath a microscope.
Jennifer Shelby has been selected to have her work added to the Lunar Codex — a collection of poetry, stories and other art that is launched into space in capsules and left on the moon.
The technology is similar to microfilm, only metal-based. It’s a communion between arts and physics so rare that it would probably take a physicist who is also an artist to come up with the idea.
Fortunately, the stars aligned to produce just such a person — Samuel Peralta, a Canadian physicist and author who invented NanoFiche technology and founded the Lunar Codex six years ago as a way to cheer up pandemic-depressed artists.
“We represent 264 countries and territories,” Peralta said in an interview. “We also have 156 Indigenous nations.
“Someone can call me from North Korea and say, have you got a North Korean creative on board? And I can say yes, I’ve got one.”
Lunar landing companies sell space to private buyers who want to put stuff on the moon. One kilogram of weight costs $1 million, according to Peralta, which is one reason why he miniaturizes the artwork on nickel for his collection.
The other reason is simply because nickel can last for billions of years on the moon.
The Lunar Codex has ten missions on the books, Peralta said, and five have already launched. The next payload, scheduled for sometime this winter, will include Shelby’s work.
For Shelby, her work’s eventual presence in the Lunar Codex is like one of her own short stories playing out in real life.
Her writing, which she describes as fairytales for people living in the contemporary world, has been published in several magazines and anthologies.
“The magical elements in my stories feel very natural to me, because it’s an extension of that wonder and imagination that is a core part of my creativity,” she said in an interview.
Peralta first emailed Shelby in 2022 asking for permission to archive her book on the moon. Thankfully, she said, the friend who recommended her to Peralta gave her a heads up about his interest, so she wasn’t too freaked out by a stranger asking to send her book to the moon.
Four years and some delays later, Shelby’s story is scheduled to go up this winter. Despite having time to get used to the idea, she said she’s not.
From her home in Riverside-Albert, near the Bay of Fundy — an area known for its dark skies — looking at the moon is surreal.
“It’s like this little bit of wonder that bubbles up in me whenever I think about it,” she said.
She already has ideas floating around in her head for a story inspired by the experience. Shelby recalled a news article from 2019 about a crash landing that resulted in the accidental release of tardigrades, invertebrates also known as water bears, on the moon.
“Maybe tardigrades will evolve and read our stories one day,” she said.
