Ayako Ono

Ayako Ono is the team artist of White Label Space. Since 1996 she has been exploring humanity's frontiers in the cosmos and imagination with her space art.

The role of art is to stimulate the senses and imagination, broaden perceptions, and explore new perspectives. Sometime soon future generations will live far from the earth's surface. The resulting changes to the living environment will necessarily affect a radical transformation in common values. Space Art will help us prepare for the creation of these new values, and help answer the fundamental question of how human beings will evolve with these new values. In tackling this complex proposition, we will explore and invent new notions of beauty in cosmic space, through the interaction between various values systems.

***

Tohoku University's SPRITE-SAT Successfully Launched

The SPRITE-SAT spacecraft designed and built by Tohoku Univeristy, a partner of White Label Space, was successfully launched into space last week on a Japanese H-IIA rocket. The satellite was inserted in the prescribed orbit and radio signals from the satellite have been received at the ground station in Tohoku University, and have confirmed that the satellite is in good health.

SPRITE-SAT has now started its mission to observe Sprites and Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGF). The spacecraft was developed by the faculty and students of Tohoku Univeristy, with technical support from external mentors experienced in satellite development. Students played a leading role in the assembly and testing of the spacecraft, giving a unique opportunity for hands-on education in space science and space engineering.

Onboard the satellite was a minature gallery of art, etched onto a silicon wafer by photolithography, making this mission also one of the first art exhibitions in outer space.

Tohoku University, led by Professor Kazuya Yoshida, will use the experience gained from SPRITE-SAT to develop the rover for our Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) mission, which will be a small rover capable of travelling at least 500m across the lunar surface and capturing hi-definition videos and photographs for transmission back to Earth.

The Moon's in a Hurry

"The moon in a hurry" by Nautilus 1, on Flickr

First Art Exhibition in Outer Space

Call for Space Art;

Tohoku University, Japan, is now developing a small satellite, named SPRITE-SAT, with launch planned for January 2009. The main mission of the satellite is a scientific study of lightening phenomena above the cloud layers but using this opportunity, they are also organizing the first art exhibition in outer space!

To take part in this exhibition you should submit monochrome digital pictures, which will be shrunk to a size of 1mm squares arranged as a mosaic on a silicon wafer fabricated using photolithography technology. The photolithography and etching process will be done on a standard silicon wafer, cut into a 3 cm by 3 cm piece, which will be exhibited in orbit attached on the top of an antenna boom on the top of the satellite. The artworks will also be exhibited on a special web page.

Submitting your artwork:
Please submit a digital drawing in 500×500 pixels, or a line drawing 500×500 pixels resolution. Black and white, no halftones. Submit as a digital file which can be displayed in 10 cm square on a computer screen.

Deadline of submission: August 10, 2008

Please send your submission or any questions to Prof. Kazuya Yoshida:
yoshida@astro.mech.tohoku.ac.jp

The Social Value of Lunar Exploration

We were recently asked about our project's meaning to society. This is a good question that should be asked of any space-related activities beyond the obvious ones that directly serve people on Earth (telecommunications and remote sensing).

Our goal of sending a robotic lander to the Moon's surface has many benefits to society. Firstly, the desire to explore new territories is a theme embedded in all societies since the dawn of humanity. In the beginning exploration was by use of our own legs and then later by the legs of animals. In the last 2 millennia we began to use machines to aid our exploration - ships, cars, aircraft. Only in the last half of the 20th century did we start to explore space, first with machines and the later with humans.

We believe that our exploration of space is only just beginning, and indeed our current generation is sitting on the frontier of that exploration. We can choose to continue the bold visions of space exploration seen during the space race while those vision are still in our consciousness and in the memories of our parents generation. Alternatively, society can choose to turn its back on space exploration and focus its energies on the problems here on Earth. By sending a robotic craft back to the surface of the Moon we are saying that humanity's urge to explore will not end at the atmosphere and space near Earth. We see the return to the Moon as a way to remind society the benefits of space exploration.

Exploration of the Moon done with today's technologies should be cheaper in the sense that it places less burden on society. We would like to prove that by using modern technologies for engineering design, and the internet we can undertake a lunar surface mission at a fraction of the cost of the traditional space missions that are funded by governments. We would like to show that we can develop new technologies to meet these challenges, and that the technologies we develop will have benefits back on Earth as well as in space.

Another important benefit to society of our lunar mission will be the expansion of humanity's consciousness This will take place in many ways, scientifically, sociologically and artistically. When we go to the Moon we will take all of humanity with us. We will show them the stark beauty of the lunar surface in high definition imagery and videos. Also, we will show that small groups of motivated individuals can achieve extraordinary things that everyday life doesn't permit. Our lunar lander mission will pave the way for sending low-cost scientific missions to study the Moon up close, which has profound implications to the formation of the Earth and all life on it.

Space Art:

Since 1996 Ayako Ono has been exploring humanity's frontiers in the cosmos and imagination with her space art. The role of art is to stimulate the senses and imagination, broaden perceptions, and explore new perspectives. Sometime soon future generations will live far from the earth's surface. The resulting changes to the living environment will necessarily affect a radical transformation in common values. Space Art will help us prepare for the creation of these new values, and help answer the fundamental question of how human beings will evolve with these new values. In tackling this complex proposition, we will explore and invent new notions of beauty in cosmic space, through the interaction between various values systems.