Suggestions Needed For TIME CAPSULE Contents

[arwalden]

My partner and I are remodeling and enlarging the bathroom ("mudroom") that's in our garage. Part of the improvements involve raising the floor level about 8" to accommodate new drain pipes.

I plan on using the hollow area under the floor to store a hidden time capsule that may--or may not--be found in the future.

The plastic box that I plan to use to hold the time capsule contents is about 18"x18"x6" and it seals airtight like a Tupperware container. What do you think I should include in the time capsule?

Also...

If you want to send a written message into the future... post it here. I'll print this thread and include it in my time capsule too.

-- Allen

P.S. Should we mark the spot with some sort of visible notation that the time capsule actually EXISTS? Possibly with a "do-not-open-until" message? --- Or should we just place it there and forget about it... and maybe (maybe) someone who wants to re-do our remodeling work will eventually find it?

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

1. How about

If you have a child or know a child have them write down what they want to be when they grow up , what they think will be invented in the future and / or what they think will happen in the world by the time the time capsule should be opened again .

Include the edition of the local paper in the time capsule on the day that the time capsule is sealed . Especially with the headlines of today , it would be interesting to see how they ended or how they were solved ( case in point " How did Iraq reform itself ? " - " Where did the Middle East Road Map lead to ? " - and especially something on Bush and the Presidential Election of 2004 )

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. Burn some CD's of current things. You can include a lot

more information than using the conventional items.

As to marking it. I would say yes, because you never know how they will demo that room in the future. Your tupperware could be smushed accidentally.

If I were doing it, I would make a reinforced concrete vault to put the tupperware thing into. I would mark it somehow on the concrete above, and make a permanent mark on, say the foundation of the house for the date and reasons to open it.

[ima_sinnic]

4. but sometime in the future, CDs will be obsolete &

nobody will be able to play them. (just think if someone in the early 80s had stashed 8-tracks in a time capsule!) I recommend duping everything in print.

[Dogmudgeon]

7. Good idea

Also, use acid-free paper, and get a can of that spray that's used to preserve documents.

Make sure that all the documents are bone-dry -- use a chunk of gypsum wallboard in a closed container to suck their humidity out of the air.

Data CDs will probably not reliably last more than 20 years, though I hope I'm wrong about that. But if you have an old, cheap, workable hard drive, and if you seal it in a small metal box, the platter could be easily recovered.

Come to think of it, the Internet might be the best time capsule of all. Some people, like Ray Kurzweil, think that the Internet will exist long after Homo sapiens has gone extinct. But you can't put the Internet in a space under the floorboards.

--bkl
Not that it hasn't been tried.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

10. There are still 8-track players. Just because you can't go to

Wal-Mutt and buy one. They are around.
There will be CD players and CD-ROM readers around.

[VOX]

3. If you mark the time capsule spot, it'll make whoever sees it think...

about its possible contents -- and that could be cool.

You could include some campaign materials for all the Democratic candidates, and a couple of pertinent Time magazines. TV Guides are also good as time markers.

How about a Hummer brochure, to reveal the kind of wretched excess some Americans sunk to?

[Dogmudgeon]

5. A great big ASTROLOGY book!

That will more than adequately demonstrate this generation's commitment to rationality, science, and the art of book-binding.

But if you're using plastic, make sure to triple- or quadruple-seal it in thick plastic bags, too. Most commercial plastics won't hold a seal much beyond 50 years, so several layers will help keep the contents dry. Also a little chunk of gypsum wallboard would help dessicate the air in the vessel.

Laquering it ("Japanning") might help, but I'm not really up on materials science. The best material is probably concrete, but that would be overkill for a small hollow area.

Most of the time capsules I used to hide around in the back yard where I lived were multiple-plastic-bagged and put in Mason Jars or metal cans -- in one case I even soldered the top back on. I planted a couple of them around the hacienda in the years between 1969 and 1973.

My Dad once told me, "Why are you putting that article about the Vietnam war in your time capsule? In thirty years, people won't know the difference between Vietnam and Iraq!"

Le plus ça change ...

He also thought I should put a book about the first Moon landing in, so that people of the future would reflect on just how far they had come in the intervening years.

Good luck with it!

--bkl

[terrya]

6. May I suggest...a copy of the Constitution of the United States?

Future Americans may not remember or recognize the original.

And a written message:

"Please forgive us".

I wish my message could be more cheery, arwalden.

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

8. GREAT IDEA ! Heck Yeah !

[Atman]

9. Bush

The real Bush. Fold him. Spindle, too.