On board Intuitive Machines' Athena spacecraft, which made a moon landing on March 6, were cutting-edge MIT payloads: a depth-mapping camera and a mini-rover called 'AstroAnt.' Also on that craft were the words and voices of people from around the world speaking in dozens of languages. These were etched on a 2-inch silicon wafer computationally designed by Professor Craig Carter of the MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering and mounted on the mission's Lunar Outpost MAPP Rover. Dubbed the Humanity United with MIT Art and Nanotechnology in Space (HUMANS), the project is a collaboration of art and science, bringing together experts from across MIT ' with technical expertise from the departments of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; nano-etching and testing from MIT.nano; audio processing from the MIT Media Lab's Opera of the Future and the Music and Theater Arts Section; and lunar mission support from the...
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