Launched in 2001, the VLC media player is marking its 20th anniversary with a bold initiative: sending a faux construction cone to the Moon, loaded with cinema classics and user-submitted videos.
VLC, the open-source and free media player from the VideoLAN project, debuted in February 2001 and boasted around 400 million users by 2019. Its strengths include support for nearly 20 platforms and playback of virtually any audio or video format, plus seamless file conversions. In a Twitter post on February 2 (likely 2021), project leads shared nostalgic development photos from École Centrale Paris—now CentraleSupélec—highlighting how its GNU General Public License fueled its rise in the free software space.
Building on this legacy, a February 8, 2021, tweet announced plans to launch a construction cone-shaped time capsule to the Moon.
This isn't a plastic cone but an aluminum box housing multiple 1TB microSD cards filled with content. Highlights include a thousand classic films, such as Georges Méliès' Journey to the Moon (1902).
Users worldwide are invited to contribute: upload videos up to 100MB (roughly 20 seconds in HD) by the February 20, 2021, deadline. Spots are limited, and there's no content moderation—a deliberate choice to embrace unfiltered creativity. VLC urges participants to record personal messages for future lunar explorers.
No opening date is set, but the design ensures long-term preservation. Notably, this capsule will hitch a ride on NASA's Peregrine mission by late 2021.
