{"id":1293,"date":"2026-05-27T12:53:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/?p=1293"},"modified":"2026-05-27T12:53:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:53:16","slug":"from-time-capsule-to-space-capsule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/from-time-capsule-to-space-capsule\/","title":{"rendered":"From time capsule to space capsule"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1792\" height=\"1195\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/Goddard-Library-Time-Capsule-1.jpg\" alt=\"Time capsule marker, Goddard Library with the following inscription: The time capsule beneath this tablet is a replica of a rocket built by Robert Hutchings Goddard in 1940 dedicated on October 12, 1966 by Vice President of the United Stated Hubert Horatio Humphrey. The capsule is to be opened in the year 2466.\" class=\"wp-image-1294\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<div style=\"color:inherit\" class=\"eyebrow  has-text-align-left\">Clarkives<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"is-style-intro\">Robert Goddard is responsible for sending rockets far away from the Earth. But 60 years ago, to honor him, Clark buried one deep within it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On October 12, 1966, in a convocation ceremony at the site of the soon-to-be-constructed Robert H. Goddard Library, a 10-foot stainless steel time capsule shaped like a replica of a 1940s-era Goddard rocket was lowered into the ground, not to be opened until 2466.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The placement of artifacts in the capsule \u201creminds us of how our culture will be seen by civilizations of future centuries,\u201d said U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who delivered the convocation address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s difficult to imagine how we\u2019ll be viewed 440 years from now based on the nearly 100 items placed in the capsule. What will a future generation make of a road atlas, or a <em>TV Guide<\/em>? Or the famous photo of Sigmund Freud at Clark?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Can we at least hope that somehow, someway, the music of the Beatles will have endured, even if no one can quite figure out how to extract sound from the black vinyl disc carrying the voices of John, Paul, George, and Ringo?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-gray-200-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-gray-200-background-color has-background\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhat will a future generation make of a <em>TV&nbsp;Guide<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-gray-200-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-gray-200-background-color has-background\"\/>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>A 55-member committee selected the items that were buried, and took care that they covered four distinct categories: Goddard Memorabilia (eight of the scientist\u2019s patents are included), the Space Age (a retro rocket from the first Apollo mission, cloth from a spacesuit), Clark History (Jonas Clark\u2019s will, copies of <em>The Scarlet<\/em>), and Contemporary Life (a miniskirt, Batman comics, a box of breakfast cereal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among the more meaningful inclusions are a vial of soil from Pakachoag Hill in Auburn, Massachusetts, where Goddard executed the first successful launch of a liquid-fuel rocket, and a vial of sand from Roswell, New Mexico, where he refined his rocketry technologies. Three years later, astronaut Buzz Aldrin would cut the ribbon on the new library and, shortly after that, leave footprints in moon dust.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On October 12, 1966, in a convocation ceremony at the site of the soon-to-be-constructed Robert H. Goddard Library, a 10-foot stainless steel time capsule shaped like a replica of a 1940s-era Goddard rocket was lowered into the ground, not to be opened until 2466.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":1294,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"departments":[],"issues":[],"class_list":["post-1293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.7 (Yoast SEO v27.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>From time capsule to space capsule | Clark Magazine | Clark University<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/magazine\/from-time-capsule-to-space-capsule\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From time capsule to space capsule\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On October 12, 1966, in a convocation ceremony at the site of the soon-to-be-constructed Robert H. 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