One small step for Museums, one giant leap for Museumkind – The “Moon Museum”

Museums are everywhere on Earth, we’ve all been to at least one and if you somehow haven’t, it’s near impossible to go somewhere and not see a sign or promotion for a museum in the area. Even driving we see signs for museums everywhere we go. They have managed to get everywhere in nearly every country and for any subject matter from the sublime to the ridiculous. However, I’m looking at this from a very narrow scope, in that I’m taking an Earthling perspective and a very Earth-centric view of what museums are around. What if we look beyond the scope of the pale blue dot, go above our atmosphere and into the closest celestial body to us?

That’s right, I’m talking about our very own moon. See, let me take you to the year 1969. On the 24th July that year, Apollo 11 made history in landing man on the moon for the first time. Apollo 12 was scheduled to lift-off on 14th November that year. With Apollo 11 been and Apollo 12 going to be on the way, American sculptor Forrest "Frosty" Myers wanted to get together six prominent artists to put a little museum on the moon (History Detectives, 2010). These artists were Robert Rauschenberg, David Novros, John Chamberlain, Claes Oldenburg, Forrest Myers and Andy Warhol (History Detectives, 2010). Together they made a tiny plaque, 19 mm × 13 mm in size (figure 1), which was to be attached to the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) Intrepid to be sent to the moon (Doctorow, 2008).

Figure 1: A copy of the plaque supposedly on the moon. Artists featured clockwise from left: Warhol, Rauschenberg, Novros, Chamberlain, Oldenburg, Myers. (Wikimedia Commons, 2026).

Initially, Myers want to go through NASA officially, but perhaps understandably they didn’t give the immediate go-ahead. According to Myers, they didn’t say no but also didn’t say… anything, really. They kept sending him in loops and circles (History Detectives, 2010), likely to delay him enough for the launch to go without him. Every lunar mission is carefully calculated and any excess weight could be the difference between landing or not, or if the astronauts get stranded on the lunar surface. While the tiny ceramic tile likely weight very little, we must remember the extreme tolerances and weight allowances that go into every excursion off of our planet, not to mention everything must be sterilised before being sent into space, to avoid spreading anything off our planet. However, since Myers was unable to go through NASA officially but still wanted this art on the moon, he went through back sources to smuggle it onto the LEM.

He contacted Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T) and through this non-profit organisation he was able to get into contact with some scientists and technicians from Bell Laboratory who were working on the mission, including Fred Waldhauer (History Detectives, 2010). Fred is going to prove very useful to Myer’s endeavours. The scientists were able to etch the drawings Myers had collected onto 16-20 ceramic tiles, using techniques usually used for making telephone circuitries, and one of these tiles was marked for the LEM while the others went to the artists and others working on the project (History Detectives, 2010).

Figure 2: The New York Times article original picture of the "museum", with Warhol's drawing covered up. (Wikimedia Commons, 2016).

Let’s quickly talk about artworks themselves, going in clockwise order from the top left. Warhol used his initials (W and A) to make his artwork, with the A being inverted to deliberately look like a phallus (Stinson, 2015). Rauschenberg did a single black line, Novros did a black square with some intersecting lines made to resemble a piece of circuitry, Chamberlain also did a circuitry pattern, while Oldenburg did a geometric take on Micky Mouse which was a motif of him at the time, while Myers himself included a computer-generated drawing (History Detectives, 2010). Via representatives, both Chamberlain and Oldenburg have confirmed they contributed to this “museum” (Anders, 2010).

So let’s get back to the story. With NASA being noncommittal about getting it on board, Fred devised a plan. He knew a Grumman Aircraft engineer working on the LEM who was game to smuggle it onto it. When Myers asked how he would know if it was successful, Fred said the engineer would send him a telegram (History Detectives, 2010). Less than two days before lift-off, on the 12th November, Myers got the telegram. To ensure its complete success, Myers did not tell the press about this project until the 22nd November, when Apollo 12 was in transit back to Earth (History Detectives, 2010).

Figure 3: Astronaut Alan Bean preparing to step onto the lunar surface from the LEM, which unbeknownst to him has a surprise museum passenger! (Wikimedia Commons, 2026).

The engineer hid the artwork under some of the gold sheeting on the LEM which would be left on the moon (figure 3), to ensure it would not be spotted in any checks before it was placed in the Saturn V rocket to go to the moon (Doctorow, 2008). While it is impossible to check for sure if it made it to the moon without a dedicated crew mission to the Apollo 12 landing site and tearing off the gold sheeting to find this tiny ceramic tile, it’s nevertheless a massive feat of museums, artwork, and ingenuity to smuggle something onto the moon.

Berengar Needham is currently a student on the MSc Museum Studies programme at the University of Leicester.

References

• Anders, C.J. (2010). Was there a miniature art museum on the Moon? Gizmodo. Available at: https://gizmodo.com/was-there-a-miniature-art-museum-on-the-moon-5557890.

• Doctorow, C. (2008). Secret museum on the moon's surface. Boing Boing. Available at: https://boingboing.net/2008/02/29/secret-museum-on-the.html.