Your Input Wanted for 50,000-Year Storage

Few could appreciate the importance of adequate storage better than astronauts and submariners.

Not only are both group' s survival stuck for nourishment and air, but each risks becoming 'Exhibit A' in an involuntary vessel abandoned to the cold of space or sunk on the oceans' floor. Afterall, time capsules are little more than containers for lengthy storage periods.

The KEO is a satellite time capsule to be launched in 2009, or 2010. It will carry messages from as many as 6 billion of Earth's current inhabitants into an orbit lasting 50,000 years, when it returns. Every person is invited to write a message addressed to the future inhabitants. The deadline is December 31, 2008. Remember that, or you may feel very, very excluded. There probably will not be another opportunity like this in our lifetimes. In fact, psychologists have come up with a syndrome for procrastinators who miss this unique opportunity - lost in space disorder.

This project may appear to be from a Sci-Fi novel, but it is being underwritten by Hutchison Whampoa, the European Space Agency, and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) among others. KEO's 50,000-year voyage will take with it up to 6 billion messages from people around the globe.

Your message costs nothing, but it is limited to 6000 characters, which for most submariners is probably more than even want to speak in one day. If you insist on paying someone, here's a more complex option for technically-minded geniuses, like Al Gore. Hmmm, he probably thought of this, too.