Will NASA's Lucy Spacecraft Carry a Plaque of Famous People to Space? Here's What This Agency Claims

When NASA's Lucy mission to the Trojan asteroids, a group of space rocks that share Jupiter's orbit around the sun, starts in October 2021, it will bring with it some inspired remarks from some very famous people.

Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein, The Beatles, Martin Luther King Jr., and other luminaries will be among those in attendance.

The US space agency stated late Monday on their website that the future voyage will carry a plaque that will serve as a "time capsule featuring messages to our generations" like the Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, and Voyager 2 spacecraft before it.

The Lucy spacecraft was named after a human ancestor's fossil skeleton and the Beatles' popular song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

(Photo: NASA/Lockheed Martin)
At 24 feet (7.3 meters) across each, Lucy’s two solar panels underwent initial deployment tests in January 2021. In this photo, a technician at Lockheed Martin Space in Denver, Colorado, inspects one of Lucy’s arrays during its first deployment. These massive solar arrays will power the Lucy spacecraft throughout its entire 4-billion-mile, 12-year journey through space as it heads out to explore Jupiter’s elusive Trojan asteroids.

NASA Shares Some Of Quotes Placed on Plaques

NASA said these asteroids, located outside of the main asteroid belt, are "in many ways "fossils" from the formation and evolution of the planets.

CNET said the plaque includes the following quotes:

"And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make." - Paul McCartney;

"We all shine on . . . like the moon and the stars and the sun." - John Lennon;

"Peace and love." - Ringo Starr;

"When you've seen beyond yourself then you may find peace of mind is waiting there." - George Harrison.

Other well-known personalities join the Beatles. Albert Einstein, poet Joy Harjo, author Kazuo Ishiguro, Martin Luther King Jr., Brian May of Queen, Yoko Ono, Carl Sagan, and others are quoted on the monument.

The plaque also includes a depiction of the Solar System as it appeared on the launch date of October 16, 2021 and the craft's initial route.

On July 9, Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, placed the plaque on the spacecraft.

The communications are comparable to the 'Golden Record,' which NASA included as part of the Voyager missions in the 1970s and was intended for aliens.

NASA included maps, photographs, greetings in 54 languages, and other portrayals of life and culture on Earth in the Golden Records.

ALSO READ: Was NASA Lucy Spacecraft Solar Panel Deployment Test Successful?

What is Lucy's Mission?

Gizmodo said the Lucy mission aims to investigate these old asteroids to understand more about the Solar System and the planets' origins.

Lucy will not leave the Solar System and travel into interstellar space, unlike the Pioneer and Voyager missions, therefore the plaque will serve as a reminder to future generations of the mission's goals.

After Lucy visits a record number of asteroids for a single mission in 2033 (8 asteroids on 6 independent orbits around the Sun), the Lucy spacecraft will continue to travel between the Trojan asteroids and the Earth's orbit for at least hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years.

The robotic spacecraft will arrive at its first destination, a main-belt asteroid, in 2025 after a 12-year trip.