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Messages from Montanans are headed on a mission to the moon

The RadPC
Montana State University
The RadPC

When NASA sends an unmanned rocket to the moon next summer, it will carry with it some unusual cargo: hundreds, perhaps thousands, of messages and photos from people back on Earth.

They’ll be stored on the RadPC, a type of computer developed by a team at Montana State University and hand-selected by NASA to go on the lunar mission.

“This is a one-way trip,” said MSU computer engineering professor Brock LaMeres. “That’s why the message thing is kinda cool.

“It’ll be there for a thousand years.”

The RadPC, a small, square panel-like device small enough to hold in your hand, is equipped with 8 terabytes of storage – the equivalent of 64 iPhone 13s, LaMeres explains. And some of that storage will be set aside for the terrestrial messages headed into space.

“Why don’t we let everybody in Montana – actually, anybody – actually upload a message and upload an optional picture to memory on the computer inside this payload so that they can feel like they’re part of something that’s actually happening in Montana,” he said.

LaMeres says he’s received about 200 messages so far. Messages can be submitted until March 11 at montana.edu/moon.

“My dream would be a message from every person in Montana,” he said. “Most of them are positive. It’s, ‘we’ve been through a tough time with the pandemic but the future looks bright.’

“It’s more positive than it is negative, so far.”

A decade of work

LaMeres has spent the past 15 or so years developing the RadPC. It’s designed to anticipate the high levels of radiation it’ll be exposed to in space.

“By the time you get to the moon, you have no protection, there’s no air up there,” he said. “And so the computers are crashing.”

LaMeres had the idea to develop a computer that, instead of crashing, can detect radiation and “basically elegantly recover[s].”

“Instead of trying to prevent the crash from happening, it expects it to happen, and then we recover from it.”

The RadPC has been to space before: Earlier versions have been sent up in high-altitude balloons above Montana, and aboard the International Space Station. But the Moon is an entirely new frontier.

“I was almost in tears,” LaMeres said of getting word from NASA that the technology had been selected for the upcoming mission. “The next decade is going to be really exciting in terms of space exploration, and just to be part of the start of that is so cool.”

Nadya joined Yellowstone Public Radio as news director in October 2021. Before coming to YPR, she spent six years as digital news editor/reporter for the NPR affiliate in Wichita, Kansas, where her work earned several Kansas Association of Broadcasters awards and a regional Edward R. Murrow award for Excellence in Social Media. Originally from Texas, Nadya has lived and worked in Colorado, Illinois, Washington, D.C.; and North Dakota. She lives in Billings with her cat, Dragon, and dog, Trooper, and enjoys hiking, crocheting, and traveling as often as possible.