Artist Plans to Put "Little Red House" on the Moon

A crowdfunding project to put a small, self-assembling red house on the Moon has begun, taking the dream of one Swedish artist a little closer to reality.

The project, which began earlier this week, has been 15 years in the making, according to TheMoonHouse website. Fifteen years ago, Swedish artist Mikael Genberg heard that the Swedish Space Corporation was planning to launch a satellite in orbit around the Moon. This moment, he says, inspired him. He thought that simply as an artistic statement, the house "would bring the barren, dead moonscape to life."

"The House will be red with white - three by two meters in the base, and it will look like a typical Swedish red cottage," Genberg said in a project video.

"We saw this an perfect example of joining up together and doing something that nobody ever expected that private people would try to do," the artist added, saying that the project will be a testament to the power of the individual through tools like crowdfunding and global initiatives. "Through being enough individuals, going together, doing this, shows that we can do anything."

Of course building a Moonhouse, especially a tiny red cottage, is very possible. According to the project team, the Moonhouse is about 75 percent complete "much thanks to Sweden's elite space engineers who have invested years of their own time and effort to realize the vision of the house."

The house will not be preassembled for flight. Instead, the project's engineering team has designed a self-assembling robotic house that will fold from its base once it touches down on the lunar surface.

The Moonhouse project team plans to send the house up late next year, flying atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the help of American aerospace company Astrobotic.

The crowdfunding project to see this all happen was announced on Wednessday, and has raised $3,669 of a $15,360,000 goal. Still, the project has 184 days left to raise the required funds.

The Moonhouse is not the only private project fascinated with the idea of placing vibrantly colored objects on the Moon. A can of a Japanese sports drink called Pocari Sweat will also be making its way to the Moon's surface come 2015, leaving the next moonman something to drink as he kicks back in a little red cottage.