NASA Wants To Know What You'd Pack On A Trip To The Moon

We're still many years away from casual consumer trips to the Moon, but it's easy to fantasize about such trips. NASA is getting in on the fun with a new campaign presenting the public with a simple question: what would you pack if you were taking your own lunar trip? NASA is encouraging anyone interested to share a picture of what's in their bag (for this imagined Moon trip) using its new #NASAMoonKit social campaign.

Any trip into space would require a bunch of specialized equipment, of course, and one would likely spend most of their time admiring the vastness of space, the Moon, and the views of our planet. However, everyone needs some downtime to relax, and that's where one's personal belongings would come in. What would you bring to pass the time?

NASA is currently working on its Artemis lunar mission with the goal of returning a couple of astronauts to the Moon's surface in 2024. The space agency explains that the astronauts will have 'pretty tight constraints' in terms of which personal items they can bring with them — it'll have to fit in a 'suitcase' measuring no more than 5 x 8 x 2-inches, which is around the size of a hardcover book.

NASA is encouraging the public to get a container that meets this volume limitation, pack it with the precious few items they'd bring along on the trip, then take a picture and share it on social media — either Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter — using the #NASAMoonKit hashtag. NASA says that it may share your post on its own social accounts if it likes what it sees.

The space agency shared a fun video showing some things one may take, but the options would indeed be much more limited. With so little space, one would likely be limited to taking some pictures of loved ones, perhaps a lucky trinket or two, a very small book, and similar things. It's unclear what kind of items astronauts on the International Space Station currently have with them.