An idea that popped up a while after I participated in the LunarOne mission kickstarter was outreach towards children (of any age).

Introduction.
One of my hobbies is hamradio and one event that comes back every year is JOTA, Jamboree On The Air.
It is organized by the scouting international organization. It revolves around the different scouting groups around the world
making contact with each other via radio with the aid of amateur radio operators and the participating children are quite enthiousastic about it.

Another part of the amateur radio hobby is communicating with other radioamateurs by bouncing radiowaves of the moon and receiving them
back on Earth.

Here comes the idea.
Take a schoolclass of children and give them the ability, with help of an amateur radio operator, to get in touch with LunarMissionOne.
A child would type in his/her name, say Kim, send it to the moon and the lander would respond with something like: "Hi Kim. This is LunarMissionOne. I have received you on the moon!"
Or you could have the lander send back an image of an LCD on the lander with the message 'Hi, Kim!" and the moon landscape in the background.
Print it out and give it to the kid. I'm sure that that will be a card they won't throw away anytime soon.

This would fairly cheap to implement as a camera weighs a few grams and a LCD maybe 30 grams and nothing at all if you would only radio a message back. You could start with it after the mission is over and have it run as long as the lander works.

Comments?

Welcome to the forum Roland, really like this idea as this would get great engagement.

Great idea! I know David is now talking seriously with a hamradio group - think it's probably you - so thank you for your contact And if it's not you, let me know quick and I'll add you to the working group on it!!

I LOVE this forum! Another good idea born...you Luminauts are awesome.

Just spent a good day at the International Balloon Fiesta ( www.bristolballoonfiesta.co.uk/ ). One of the UK's top 5 outdoor events and 500,000 people apparently. It'd be a great opportunity in the future to have a stand there to get the public engaged (if they're turning up to see balloons they're likely to be interestable in space), and maybe a moon balloon? LM1 selling hot air balloon trips to the moon? Well not really (was it jules verne or h g wells) but it'd be really cool ...

If it's me I'm not aware of it.

As a STEM Ambassador, and with my efforts for LM1, I provide talks to schools, colleges and even some of teh astronomical societies. One of teh talks for school is entitled "Engineering Challenges for Space" and, after a brief introduction of LM1 then explores everything from getting off the Earth to living in space, to why the moon is useful as a resource for longer journeys. We even talk about postential multi-generational journeys and how they might be achieved (gets their imaginations working hard). Happy to discuss and distribute my slide pack and some notes.