Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck

New Horizons has been making headlines for studying Pluto and its moons en route to a July 14 rendezvous with the dwarf planet, but that event may not mark the end of its mission, according to media reports that reveal NASA is considering one final task for the probe.

The project is being called the One Earth Message, and according to Space.com, it would allow researchers, teachers, engineers, and others to upload content to the spacecraft. That content then would be passed along to hypothetical advanced extraterrestrial civilizations located beyond our solar system, similar to the “golden records” placed on the Voyager spacecraft.

In fact, the website added, One Earth Message is being led by the same man who served as the design director for that program, Jon Lomberg. Lomberg is an artist who specializes in creating visual media inspired by astronomy, and his works include a portrait of the Milky Way that spent a decade on display in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

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Lomberg explained to Space.com that the goals of One Earth Message would be similar to those of Voyager’s golden records, but would be on a more global scale, with people from all parts of the world being invited to contribute images, sounds, and other concepts to the project.

“This is really a chance to try to think about ourselves from the long perspective,” he explained to the website. “We’ll never know if this extraterrestrial audience that we’re designing it for will receive it. But we do know that the people of Earth who participate, who play a role in it – it can literally change their lives.”

While the Voyager recordings were placed on actual, physical records, the content of the One Earth Message would be digital, Lomberg added. If the project is approved by NASA officials (who are reportedly enthusiastic about the idea), his team will be allowed to upload a total of 150 megabytes of data to New Horizons, prohibiting the use of video.

The digital format would allow One Earth Message to be more flexible than the golden records were, he told Space.com. For instance, the message could be altered at any time by adding or removing content. Lomberg added that the project would not be funded by NASA directly, and that he and his colleagues hoped to raise at least $500,000 through crowdsourcing.

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RedOrbit had a chance to discuss One Earth Message with Lomberg via email, and he said that he and his colleagues were “confident that NASA will eventually approve our project, which they have told us informally they like very much. They may be waiting until the primary mission (the Pluto flyby) is complete, and then announce it as part of the future plans for the spacecraft.”

When asked what types of content he thought or hoped his team would receive, he said, “I imagine that we know in a general way what sort of categories of content we will have – most are pretty obvious like pictures of families, animals, landscapes, etc.”

“Which particular ones are selected is impossible to know,” Lomberg told redOrbit via email. “To me the most exciting thing about the project is that it will be the people of Earth, not me or any other individual, who decides what is important to show the Universe about ourselves.”

However, he also emphasized that One Earth Message will only happen “if it is supported by the people it will represent,” reiterating that NASA will provide “no money” toward funding the project. “We are fundraising right now to build the complex submission website we require,” he added. “The best thing people can do is visit our website, donate, and spread the road to their own networks of friends and colleagues.”

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