Sefer Torah

The Torah on the Moon project, based in Tel Aviv, has been courting private firms to deliver a handwritten Jewish scroll called a sefer Torah to the lunar surface.

Last week, the engineering arm of the European Space Agency confirmed that it has been commissioned to test the space-hardiness of the capsule that would contain the sefer Torah.

“The sefer Torah has unique symbolic value and is nowadays the most sacred object in Judaism,” says Nicholas de Lange, a researcher in Jewish and Hebrew studies at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

New Scientist writes that the European Space Agency's engineering arm in the Netherlands confirmed that it was commissioned to test the Sefer Torah's capsule.

He has to be very careful, because even a single missing, damaged or misshapen letter invalidates the entire Sefer Torah.