---
title: "New NASA Spacecraft Will Carry Time Capsule for the Descendants of Humans"
description: "NASA's Lucy spacecraft was just outfitted with a message for any future civilizations that happen to discover it in the distant future."
date: "2021-07-14"
modified: "2021-07-14"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-spacecraft-time-capsule"
categories:
  - "NASA"
  - "Space"
tags:
  - "lucy"
  - "space"
  - "the digest"
  - "time capsule"
---

# New NASA Spacecraft Will Carry Time Capsule for the Descendants of Humans

![NASA's Lucy spacecraft was just outfitted with a message for any future civilizations that happen to discover it in the distant future.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Lucy.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: \<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2020/lucy-spacecraft" target="\_blank"\>Southwest Research Institute via NASA / Futurism  \</a\>\</em\>*

## Message in a Bottle

As NASA prepares to launch Lucy, a spacecraft that will explore the asteroids that share Jupiter's orbit, engineers added an important finishing touch: a little time capsule for the descendants of modern humanity.

The spacecraft, slated for an October 16 launch, will travel out to Jupiter to study the Trojan asteroids, which NASA believes contain secrets about the earliest days of the solar system and how its planets formed, *[Gizmodo ](<https://gizmodo.com/nasa-s-lucy-spacecraft-will-carry-a-time-capsule-for-fu-1847281672>)*[reports](<https://gizmodo.com/nasa-s-lucy-spacecraft-will-carry-a-time-capsule-for-fu-1847281672>). But because the space agency has no plans to bring Lucy back to Earth, it also included a little message for whatever civilization might find the spacecraft in the distant future — not unlike the Pioneer and Voyager probes, which each carried messages [announcing our existence](<https://futurism.com/a-40-year-old-voyager-spacecraft-can-guide-aliens-to-earth>) to any theoretical aliens.

## Hello World

It's not clear that whatever future civilization finds Lucy's message will be able to understand our language, *Gizmodo* notes. But just in case, the [full list of messages](<http://lucy.swri.edu/LucyPlaque.html>) includes quotes from famous musicians including The Beatles as well as civil rights leaders, Poet Laureates, Nobel Prize winners, and others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqI2ysgilN0

The plaque will also carry a depiction of the solar system as it will be on Lucy's expected launch date. That way, any astro-archeologists, as NASA called future space explorers in [a press release](<https://phys.org/news/2021-07-nasa-lucy-mission-message-future.html>), will be able to determine exactly where we were when we launched our message.

**READ MORE:** [NASA’S Lucy Spacecraft Will Carry a Time Capsule for Future Earthlings](<https://gizmodo.com/nasa-s-lucy-spacecraft-will-carry-a-time-capsule-for-fu-1847281672>) \[*Gizmodo*\]

**More on space messages:** *[NASA Facility Will Beam Messages To Space Through Lasers](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-facility-beam-messages-space-lasers>)*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)