People have always tried to own the moon. A Prussian king gave the moon to a healer in the mid-1700's. Both the Soviet Union and the United States were terrified that either would claim ownership of the moon during the Space Race. A clever entrepreneur named Dennis Hope has sold acres of the moon as novelty items through his Lunar Embassy since 1980. Now you can own your own slice through Kickstarter buying getting in on the crowdfunding for MOON, billed as the most accurate lunar globe ever created.
Although the creators of the minimally titled MOON appear in their video wearing spacesuits, everything in their creation is down-to-Earth. Their video chronicles how Oscar Lhermitte, a French designer based out of London, slowly became obsessed with creating a perfect topographical model of the Moon. He started off browsing through pictures from NASA; when that proved inefficient he contacted the Institute of Planetary Research in Denmark to use their photos. After what he describes as "countless hours" of piecing together images, he was able to create a working 3D model for printing using images from NASA's 2009 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
MOON is no simple 3D printing job. Lhermitte's obsession brings together the latest in technology with a dedication to craftsmanship that calls to mind the Dutch masters. He started a new job, working for "expert mold makers," with the sole purpose of learning how to be better mold his Moon into the most detailed cast imaginable. Each MOON is rotocasted in Lhermitte's studio, spinning within a gyroscope that allows one to imagine the center of its own universe.
Lhermitte opines in his video that "the moon would be nothing without the sun," which is why he's added rotating solar lights his display. The end result looks similar to the rotating solar systems seen in so many science fairs, except with a hyper-accurate, minimalist sheen. All the hits, like the crater Tycho, named after Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, and the Sea of Tranquillity, where the Apollo 11 landed, are there.
At early bird special pricing, MOON costs $640.
Source: Wired
David Grossman is a staff writer for PopularMechanics.com. He's previously written for The Verge, Rolling Stone, The New Republic and several other publications. He's based out of Brooklyn.
