In a project as ambitious as it is poetic, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry will soon be heading to the Moon. Engraved on a coin-sized disc, the original French edition of the iconic tale will be part of the Memory Disc V3, a space archival medium developed by the American company Barrelhand in partnership with UNESCO.
Designed to withstand vacuum, cosmic radiation, and extreme temperatures, this 1.4-gram disc is capable of preserving information for millions of years. It will be launched aboard several lunar missions in 2025 and 2027, notably as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) program.
The Little Prince, a landmark work of Francophone literature, was selected to appear on the disc for its universal reach, simple language, and profound messages about friendship, solitude, and the way we see the world. It is a text that speaks to all generations and cultures, a story that transcends time and borders.
The Memory Disc V3 also preserves another vital trace of our humanity: 286 translations of UNESCO’s founding phrase — “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men and women that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” This sentence embodies UNESCO’s vision of a world where peace is built through culture, education, and dialogue.
Alongside these texts, the disc contains a collection of artworks spanning 30,000 years of human history, visual sound recordings, and navigation data inspired by the Voyager Golden Record. The project is presented as a new Rosetta Stone for space, a transmission object intended for any form of intelligence, human or otherwise, that might one day discover it.
In this extraordinary endeavor, The Little Prince becomes more than a book — it becomes a visible fragment of our humanity, entrusted to the infinity of the cosmos.
For more information, visit barrelhand.com.
