I Have a Poem Going to the Moon!

Yesterday, I was thrilled to be tagged in this post from Mark Lipman:

It's my great honor and privilege to present to you the poets of The Vagabond Codex, an anthology created specifically to be included in the payload for the Polaris rocket, which will be launching to the moon in November 2024.

111 poets have been selected for this special mission to the moon, to preserve the very best of our arts, culture, poetry and humanity, as part of the internationally protected record of lunar artifacts in perpetuity.

This, my friends, is as close to immortality as it gets.

Thank you so much to Samuel Peralta for inviting me to include this collection in the Lunar Codex!

My poem "Cold Hard Rapture" was selected as part of this collection.

Lunar Codex founder Samuel Peratla responded with this information: 

Just so it's clear to all the authors here, this anthology is going to be archived in the #LunarCodex's Polaris time capsule, aka Codex Polaris, aka the Polaris collection. (Polaris is not the name of the launch vehicle or the mission)

It's not definite yet what NASA mission this anthology will be on, but the Lunar Codex is targeting it for the SpaceX Falcon Heavy / Astrobotic Griffin lander mission scheduled for November 2024 to the Lunar South Pole. This may be delayed to February 2025 or later - which is not unusual. In any case, the Lunar Codex has already reserved space on this mission with Astrobotic, a NASA CLPS partner - but it may be moved to another mission.

We currently represent over 35,000 creative artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers from 233 countries, territories, and Indigenous nations. It is the most diverse and global space project in history. Our first landing is now a declared Heritage Site under the Artemis Accords.

The #LunarCodex is responsible only for the contents of its time capsule payload. The schedule and indeed the success of the launch is the responsibility of NASA, SpaceX, and their CLPS partners; we have zero control over it.

We've launched with three NASA missions so far - two were successes (Orion, the current Odysseus) but one (Peregrine) did not make it to the Moon and ended with a controlled burn in the atmosphere. Space is hard.

Having said that, we have three more missions (May, August, November 2024) and we trust the companies involved will incorporate lessons learned in these missions.

For more information, you can click over to the Lunar Codex website. 

I am grateful and honored to be chosen and will share any updates that come my way.

Update #1: The anthology has been retitled The Vagabond Lunar Collection.