Such a surprise for humanity is being prepared by an international initiative group that created the KEO project. The essence of the task is this: a satellite is launched into space - that very sphere a little less than a meter in diameter, which will contain messages from the current population of Earth to those who will live on our planet in 50 thousand years. Throughout this entire period, the ball will float in near-Earth orbit at a distance of 1,800 km. Then it will begin to descend and enter the dense layers of the Earth's atmosphere. However, it should not burn up: a special fire-resistant shell will protect the contents from high temperatures. Moreover, according to its creators' calculations, during its fall KEO should glow as brightly as possible to warn our descendants of its appearance (and apparently, the need to immediately take cover in the nearest bomb shelter). And then, when the ball crashes to Earth and cools down, descendants will be able to open it and find in it everything that our contemporaries considered necessary to preserve for history.
The practice of "forcibly" reminding descendants about us and our time is not new. In the 50s-80s of the last century, this fad took on the character of an epidemic, especially in our country. In almost every second foundation of Soviet buildings of state significance lies a special capsule that was supposed to be opened by some "Komsomol members of 2030". Such "unopenable safes" usually contained pompous messages to future communist generations. For some reason, it was believed that a descendant, opening such a capsule, would be overjoyed to find, instead of gold and jewels, a half-rotten letter from their great-great-grandfathers. However, the KEO project is much more ambitious: foundations, even the strongest, are short-lived and crumble to dust over several centuries. So most of the forgotten capsules "to future Komsomol members" will be discovered within a maximum of 10-15 generations. But a satellite in space can calmly fly for millennia and wait for the appointed time.
In the meantime, KEO, conceived by French artist Jean-Marc Philippe, has not yet been launched, although this project has already been approved by such a respectable organization as UNESCO. The idea arose back in the late 1990s, and at first it was not considered very serious. But the organizers turned out to be persistent people, and everything is heading toward the fact that Monsieur Philippe's wild imagination will sooner or later become reality. It is currently planned to put the sphere into orbit in 2005, possibly with the help of the French launch vehicle Ariane. Meanwhile, the collection of letters to descendants continues, and anyone who has something to say to the future inhabitants of Earth can become a participant in the project. To do this, you need to visit the KEO website and leave your message. In addition to this collective text, the sphere will also contain pictures depicting "children of different peoples" and a DNA molecule, as well as a diamond "microcontainer" with samples of current soil, atmospheric air, sea water, and a drop of human blood. It is assumed that future archaeologists should be simply happy to receive such a "testimony of material culture" from the heavens.
However, this project was made not so much for descendants as for our contemporaries. Whether "Komsomol members of the 52nd millennium" need our letters, air and blood is a debatable question. But we often want to know that at least part of what we have created will not be destroyed, but will outlive the centuries. For these purposes, the KEO "cosmic can" is simply an ideal means.