The Museum’s gift shop opened 2 years ago. So far it has been moderately successful with some items being especially treasured by their owners. These cubes are replicas of those found on one of the early explorations of other planets. People on a small planet orbiting the minor star Sol were especially interested in the idea that these were originally made on a planet that was losing its blue identity as, warming up, the dry heat evaporated water away.
On a deteriorating planet in orbit round Sol there was a lot of interest in the idea of colonising another planet in their solar system. Despite being inhospitable to animal and plant life as they knew it due to its intense radiation, the humans who were interested talked up the idea of colonising first the moon round their own planet and then the red planet Mars. Research was done into how humans could live there, including using the Martian regolith to build domes that humans could safely live in. Exhibitions showed models of these and the most up to date rovers. Artists created artworks that showed the planet in its 3D glory.
Meanwhile on Terra the small blue plant close to Sol, the plague continued. People grew tired as one day leached into the other, days and months grew longer and bleaker.
Here at MOSE curators have working to catalogue the latest delivery of 21st century archival work from the SOL system. Despite some damage due to poor storage this reveals how some artists future-scoped the century – in this case the introduction of new technology to fundamentally edit and change DNA. From genetic tourism – 2045 to Bio engineered young blood 2055 to fishing dogs with gills – 2075.
2045 Genetic tourism facilities colonise redundant office space
2055 Scientist crack code for “young blood”. Huge sales expected. Lifeblood Inc stocks rise 200%
2070 first ‘fishing’ dog with gills as flood waters rise and land engulfed.
Back in the early 2100s micropigs – engineered using the then new gene editing system CRISPR, were the rave pets for people increasingly forced to live in small homes. As space exploration took off in the late 2800s pets were not allowed on newly terra-formed planets, space stations and moons, and an industry took shape of original micropig sculptures catering for the retro tastes of many settlers. MOSE has a small but growing collection of these.
The fifth planet in orbit round red dwarf X394 is home to artefacts that coincide in colour with most of the planet’s surface – although their entrances glow with gold rims. Coming in differing sizes we have yet to determine whether they are biological in origin. The differing size indicates a growth from juvenile onwards, they could have been fossilised during one of the known cold periods. Some of them contain pieces of other material manifestations. The inhabitants of the planet are recent posthuman colonists and discovered these objects hidden in caves they explored after their first wave of settlement.
Posthuman technology…one of the most important aids to space exploration and one of the fastest growing procedures of choice during the 3030s. Close up (magnified 100 times) of the hearing implants that enabled people to hear 10 times more clearly. Many found the cacophony of sound too much to bear but had to wait ten years before the implant dissolved away.
The Collection
Thanks to the Balinger Freight Corporation who have given MOSE the latest addition to its collections – a four drawer wooden chest containing pieces of high specification, ceramic matrix composites. Used in some of the very first warp drives they could withstand temperature ranges from between minus 250 degrees C to 3000 degrees C. One of the founders of the Corporation had spent years amassing the objects and similar retro spaceship parts. These he would keep in chests and drawers dating from early 1900s and spend time ensuring that the drawers worked perfectly, that the polish remained smooth, and that he could find a space for storing the redundant small pieces of precision engineering that the Corporation would bring back from their journeys to distant galaxies.
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The artist in residence at MOSE has been working on a series of oil paintings on linen inspired by the ceramics on display in the Museum.
Museum of Space Exploration 