Acknowledgements

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I could not have reached out to the tens of thousands of creatives now in the Lunar Codex, nor imagined this incredible journey was possible, without my network of friends in the arts and in technology. Curators, anthologists, and editors, engineers, technologists, and dreamers - to each and everyone of you, thank you to the Moon and back.

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• Alice, my partner at Incandence, Windrift Media, and in life, for whom I first promised the Moon

• Bruce Ha, scientist, entrepreneur, and the visionary behind the NanoFiche and Totenpass data storage technologies

• Didi Menendez, indefatigable curator and editor, the heart of the PoetsArtists community, and publisher at GOSS183

• For the Lunar Codex's commissioned collection of poetry, The Polaris Trilogy, inspired lead editor Joyce Brinkman - inaugural Poet Laureate of Indiana and executive director of Brick Street Poetry - assisted by editors professors Dr. Joe Heithaus of DePauw University, and Jessica Reed of Butler University; and Barry Harris, Vice President of Brick Street Poetry and editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal

• Jessica Libor, curator of the Legends of the Moon exhibit, in collaboration with the Lunar Codex, at the Era Contemporary Gallery

• Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt, collectors, philanthropists, and the soul of The Bennett Prize 

• Kara Lysandra Ross, tireless curator and arts educator, co-chair and chief operating officer of the Art Renewal Center

• Publisher Eric Rhoads, and editor-in-chief Peter Trippi, of Fine Art Connoisseur magazine

• Danijela Krha Purssey, editor-in-chief and co-founder with Richard Purssey of Beautiful Bizarre magazine

• Grace Cavalieri, poet, founder and host of the pre-eminent poetry podcast The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress 

• Beverly Chang, art enthusiast and public relations director for the California Art Club 

• Romana Go, collector and peerless arts promoter at The Argo Collection

• Graeme Stevenson, OAM, artist, educator, documentary filmmaker - and his many associates at Colour In Your Life

• My fellow curators at PoetsArtists, including Sergio Gomez (special shout-out to the 33 Contemporary Gallery), David Anthony Hummer (special shout-out to the Wasau Museum of Contemporary Art), Daniel Maidman, Steven DaLuz, Frank Bernarducci, Dirk Dzimirksy, Alisa El-Bermani, Jay Menendez, Walt Morton, John Seed, and of course Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt, and Didi Menendez, and so many more I know only through the PA exhibit catalogs

• My editors for The Future Chronicles and the Chronicle Worlds anthology series, Crystal "Pikko" Watanabe, Ellen Campbell, Chris Pourteau, Therin Knite, Alex Roddie, Jeff Seymour, Nolie Wilson, Lucas Bale, Carol Davis; co-editors Anthea Sharp, Nick Webb, and Artie Cabrera; and the editors for my own stories, John Joseph Adams, David Gatewood, Naomi Leadbeater, and P.K. Tyler 

• My co-anthologists, Patrice Fitzgerald of Beyond the Stars, Daniel Arthur Smith of Tales from the Canyons of the Damned and Frontiers of Speculative Fiction, P.K. Tyler of UnCommon Anthologies, Kim Wells and P.K. Tyler of Mosaics, Artie Cabrera of Gravity City, Shebat Legion of Klarissa Dreams and Legion Press, John Joseph Adams, editor and publisher of the Hugo award-winning Lightspeed magazine

• My rideshare partners on Peregrine, Susan Kaye Quinn of Writers on the Moon, and Ryan O'Shea of Future Grind

• Lori Taylor, co-founder and co-CEO, with Chris Habachy, of Galactic Legacy Labs, my logistics partner for the Nova mission; and DHL MoonBox, logistics partner for the Peregrine and Griffin missions

• The scientists, engineers, and staff at NASA, Astrobotic Technology, Intuitive Machines, SpaceX, the United Launch Alliance, and Blue Origin, makers of the next-generation spacecraft, launch platforms, landers, and rovers for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Service program and for the Artemis program to return humans to the Moon, for whom the journey is also the destination

• My parents, who nourished my love for art and music and poetry and science, and all my family, for whom love lasts in perpetuity

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I am grateful to all the artists, sculptors, authors, poets, songwriters, musicians, and filmmakers whose works fill and inspire this life. Thank you. Salamat. Gǎn xiè. Merci beaucoup.

 

- Samuel Peralta
  Toronto, Canada, Earth

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