The US space agency NASA has started a project that invites people of all ages to send their names to the moon aboard the LunarReconnaissanceOrbiterscheduled for launch in late 2008.
The "Mona Lisa" experiment was transmitted at a slow data rate of about 300 bits per second, but the "pathfinding achievement sets the stage for ... high data rate laser-communication demonstrations that will be a central feature of NASA's next moon mission, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, " said Goddard's Richard Vondrak, the orbiter's deputy project scientist.