Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows in Santa Monica is offering guests and locals the chance to send messages to the moon as part of an artist collaboration with the first African-American woman to pilot a spacecraft. Olivia Palamountain reports

Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows has partnered with Uplift Aerospace's Starborn Academy to create a programme that allows its guests and local community to write letters to space.

The messages will be digitally etched onto a disc and included aboard Astrolab's FLIP (FLEX Lunar Innovation Platform) rover during its upcoming mission to the Lunar South Pole in December 2025, as part of Griffin Mission 1.

The  initiative launches on June 3 with a public event at the hotel, featuring a live demonstration of the FLIP lunar rover and appearances by Dr Sian Proctor, the SpaceX Inspiration4 astronaut and artist who made history as the first African-American woman to pilot a spacecraft.

The messages will form part of a lunar time capsule artwork created by Dr Proctor, with the rover scheduled for delivery to the moon via Astrobotic's Griffin Mission-1 lander through NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme.

The free event invites Santa Monica residents to meet Dr Proctor and the rover team, engage with Astrolab engineers and participate in hands-on space exploration experiences. Proceeds from the message programme will support STEM education initiatives provided at no cost to local schools and youth organisations.

Dr Proctor, a geoscientist who spent time in orbit during the 2021 Inspiration4 mission, has since incorporated her space experiences into Afrofuturist artwork exploring themes of space exploration and Earth stewardship.

The collaboration reflects growing commercial interest in lunar missions, with Astrolab - founded by NASA veterans and former SpaceX engineers - having secured contracts to develop mobility solutions for future moon exploration, including NASA's Lunar Terrain Vehicle for the Artemis programme.