Readiness Begins with Hope

Hope — a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen

Moonshot — an extremely ambitious project undertaken to achieve a monumental goal

The Hope Moonshot is a mission of the Readiness Institute and Global Moonshots in Education to foster hope in the future. Our goal is to collect messages of hope from students, educators, and members of the global community and then send those messages to the Moon to create a lasting reminder that the hopes of today can become the reality of tomorrow.

Since 2020, we have collected thousands of messages of hope from more than 30 countries. These hopes will be saved on an SD card that will be placed in a durable storage capsule created for space travel. The capsule will be delivered to the Moon’s surface on a lunar lander, built by Astrobotic Technology, Inc., a space robotics company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If our hopes can make it to the moon, then our hopes can become true on Earth.

Justin Aglio, Ed.D., executive director, Readiness Institute at Penn State

The First Hope Moonshot Mission

three students at Moonshot Museum

The first group of collected messages of hope were added to the DHL Moonbox payload on the Peregrine Lunar Lander built by Astrobotic. According to Astrobotic, “at 2:18 a.m. (ET) on January 8, 2024, the Peregrine Lunar Lander lifted off on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.”

Unfortunately, shortly after the successful launch, an anomaly occurred causing a propellant leak and preventing the lander from reaching the surface of the Moon. However, it was able to collect data and observations for future missions.

For updates on Peregrine from Astrobotic, follow along on X/Twitter.

What does that mean for the Hope Moonshot project?

As it happens sometimes in life, missions may not always succeed but our hopes will always endure. The hopes aboard the Peregrine and others submitted will be added to a future payload and make it to the Moon soon! Stay tuned for updates.

Share Your Hopes for the Future

girl writing hope at Moonshot Museum

We invite you to visit the Moonshot Museum — where the lunar spacecrafts are built — and write or draw your own messages of hope. Once your hope has been sent to the Moon, every time you look into the night sky, you’ll be reminded of what it is that you’re hoping for and how your actions can contribute to the greater good of community and future readiness.

Our mission is to enable every person to reach their fullest potential.

Esther Wojcicki, Ph.D., CEO and founder, Global Moonshots in Education