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  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Japan to put a small red Swedish house on the Moon

(2024/09/13)


Tokyo-headquartered company ispace announced on Thursday it is sending a tiny toy red Swedish house to the Moon.

Why? Because we've hurled so much junk to the Moon already, why not a house? More likely, The Register assumes, money. ispace claims it's art.

" [1]The Moonhouse is an artistic and epic story that Mikael [Genberg] has envisioned for 25 years. The story of the Moonhouse, a small red house on the surface of the Moon, will finally come to fruition with ispace leading to an iconic artwork filled with new possibilities and new ideas," [2]explained the private spacefaring concern.

[3]

Swedish artist Mikael Genberg is ispace’s final payload customer for the HAKUTO-R Mission 2, which is expected to bring the Resilience lunar lander and Tenacious micro rover to the Mare Frigoris in the Moon's northern hemisphere – a sun-drenched bit of prime real estate with a clear line of communication to Earth.

[4]

[5]

The house will hitch a ride to the Moon in the payload bay of the Resilience lander, secured to the front of the Tenacious rover. Eventually it will be deployed to the lunar surface. The launch is set to take place sometime after December 2024, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

[6]

Genberg's Moonhouse mounted on ispace's Tenacious lunar micro rover – Click to enlarge

Genberg is known for creating whimsical architectual structures in unusual places – for instance, a treehouse hotel in Vasteras, Sweden, or an [7]underwater hotel , also in Sweden. He placed a red house, similar to the Moonhouse, near the top of Stockholm's globe-esque Avicii Arena in 2009, and has been looking to [8]replicate the work on the Moon for a number of years.

"The Moonhouse is a fantastic project, and we are incredibly pleased to be part of finally realizing it. The vision of the artwork merges with our own: to expand our planet and future, and to extend the sphere of human life into space," gushed ispace-Europe CEO Julien-Alexandre Lamamy.

[9]FCC boss starts bringing up Musk's Starlink dominance, antitrust concerns

[10]Domo arigato, Mr Roboto: Japan's bullet trains to ditch drivers

[11]Robot enters Fukushima's nuclear core to retrieve melted-down remains

[12]Boeing to launch quantum comms satellite testbed in 2026

ispace-Europe will be responsible for developing the Tenacious micro rover – one of the six payloads aboard the spacecraft. Aside from Moonhouse and Tenacious, payloads include water electrolyzer equipment, a food production module, a deep space radiation probe, and a commemorative alloy plate.

Tokyo-based ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada revealed that Resilience lander assembly and integration is complete and on schedule. "As we have said all along, Mission 2 development and mission planning are being determined based on feedback from the lessons learned during Mission 1."

Mission 1 of HAKUTO-R aimed to achieve a soft landing on the Moon in April 2023, but instead [13]experienced a disappointing crash landing that resulted in lost communications.

[14]

The HAKUTO-R program's long-term goals include establishing commercial lunar transportation services. ®

Get our [15]Tech Resources



[1] https://themoonhouse.se

[2] https://ispace-inc.com/news-en/?p=6120

[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZuQNRrZfUXy_PKqz21GR7AAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZuQNRrZfUXy_PKqz21GR7AAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZuQNRrZfUXy_PKqz21GR7AAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[6] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/09/13/ispace_moonhouse.jpg

[7] https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g189878-d266150-Reviews-Utter_Inn-Vasteras_Vastmanland_County.html

[8] https://sgafastigheter.se/vara-arenor-fastigheter/avicii-arena/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/12/starlink_satellite_dominance_fcc/

[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/12/japan_automated_bullet_train/

[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/11/robot_enters_fukushimas_nuclear_core/

[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/12/boeing_quantum_satellite/

[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/25/ispace_hakutor_lunar_lander_crash/

[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZuQNRrZfUXy_PKqz21GR7AAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/



What our surveyed are syaing

Homo.Sapien.Floridanus

“If that’s art then the F must be silent. Isn’t that right Mr. Bigglesworth?.

Dr. Evil, Art Critic

“I hope it’s not made of sticks or straw. There may be big bad aliens on the m-m-m-m-m… earth’s satellite”

Porky Pig, Code Enforcement

"a small red house on the surface of the Moon"

Pascal Monett

I wonder how long it will take for that small red house to be completely bleached by the Sun's endless radiation.

Re: "a small red house on the surface of the Moon"

Steve K

..or to dislodge and disable the rover the minute it lands

Re: "a small red house on the surface of the Moon"

Richard 12

I'm sure they've considered that.

The bigger question is whether it will ever be in camera shot. If there's a little red house on the Moon and nobody sees it, is it still Art?

Re: "a small red house on the surface of the Moon"

Crypto Monad

Next up: Whalers.

Re: "a small red house on the surface of the Moon"

TitterYeNot

I wonder how long it will take for that small red house to be completely bleached by the Sun's endless radiation.

In 99 and one half days, shirley...

Spelling nazi here...

may_i

There's a huge difference between "Västerås" (the name of a city in Sweden) and "Vasteras" (which isn't a word).

sin

Wikipedia: Västerås (/ˌvɛstərˈoʊs/ VEST-ər-OHSS, US also /-ˈɔːs/ -⁠AWSS,[4][5][6][7] Swedish: [vɛstɛrˈoːs])

I am sick and tired of those letters and voices that don't exist in my language, but people are still insisting on putting them everywhere, expecting that everybody else will spend time searching the Internet for right pronunciation.

I prefer to have something close to how it would be pronounced, than to see it in original and don't know what to do with ä and å (assuming other letters are read like in my language)...

So "Vesteros" might be more accurate, so let's start the Games of Thrones :)

Btw, I also have letters specific to my language and alphabet in my name, but I don't force that on anybody...

may_i

It's a Swedish word. It should be spelled with the correct characters.

If you can't pronounce Swedish (and nobody expects you to be able to) then just make up your own sounds. Suggesting that the article's author should attempt to spell the name phonetically in English when they are unlikely to know how it should be pronounced is a terrible idea and would merely lead to even more ridiculous spellings which would be meaningless to everyone.

Your suggestion of "Vesteros" is incorrect. While your interpretation of "ä" as sounding like an English "e" in this context is correct, the Swedish character "å" is pronounced like the end of the English word "paw".

Sandtitz

"Your suggestion of "Vesteros" is incorrect. While your interpretation of "ä" as sounding like an English "e" in this context is correct, the Swedish character "å" is pronounced like the end of the English word "paw"."

Everyone can check the pronounciation in the [1]Wikipedia article about Västerås. There's even a (poorly recorded) sound bite.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4ster%C3%A5s?useskin=vector

If Lester were still with us, El Reg would already have a whole Playmonaut village on the Moon

Empire of the Pussycat

In his memory.

Re: If Lester were still with us, El Reg would already have a whole Playmonaut village on the Moon

cookieMonster

Upvote, and a pint for Lester.

I really miss his contributions to this site.

Jonathon Green

I don’t hate this idea.

If we’re going to send junk into space it might as well be something small,, whimsical, amusing, and which gives a certain amount of pleasure to someone rather than just another monument to bloated nationalistic/corporate pride dressed up as science…

Doctor Syntax

Or an entire Tesla.

Sorry, guys...

Brave Coward

... but Pentagon says: 'No Reds on the moon'.

Only white houses allowed.

Hitchcock's Staple Principle:
The stapler runs out of staples only while you are trying to
staple something.