Rochester creator will launch memories into space with new technology

Yahoo

02-04-2025

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — We all have our favorite memories stored in photo albums or a flash drive to make sure we don't lose them. Well, one Rochester inventor focused on creating an eternal method of saving what's important, is taking classic memories to new heights.
Bruce Ha came to the United States from Vietnam with his family at just 10 years old — nearly 50 years ago.
'When we came over, we had nothing except for photo albums that our family took. And with the photo albums, they're disintegrating. They're falling apart,' Ha said.
When he came to Rochester in the 90s, it was a job at Kodak that continued Ha's passion for preserving history in an eternal format. His first way of doing that was by helping Kodak launch its CD-ROM technology.
'To create a permanent record, we have to put it into something that's… we have to consider a couple things,' Ha said. 'We have to consider, first that it's going to last, it's going to endure. And second, it's got to be recoverable.'
That's exactly what Ha set out to do when he left Kodak and took on a new title of CEO of Stamper Technology. There, he created Nanofiche technology.
'We have to be able to do something that is visual, that is human readable. Otherwise, imagine 10,000 years from now, we uncover a bunch of digital things, like an SD card, a USB card. How do you go about reading that?,' Ha said.
But on something made of gold or nickel, Ha said it's forever. But how does Ha store files on something so small?
'Nanofiche is the invention I created that puts information onto an analog format, and it's engraved onto nickel, and as nickel, it will endure, because the information is just missing,' Ha said.
And it's something you have to see to believe and understand. Ha took News 8 into his lab and showed the process of creating Galactic Library Preserve Humanity, or simply put, GLPH. Pouring in the bits of nickel, using a laser to etch the images onto tiny and thin material, and viewing the files when the process is complete. Remember those disintegrating family photos?
'This is our family today,' Ha said as he showed the family photos etched on a GLPH. 'And oh, here's the image of when we first landed in Thailand. And all we had were exactly that.'
Those memories, along with a huge library now on a number of sturdy nickel and gold will stand the test of time when they are launched into space later this year. Through a contract with Astrobotic technology, classics including Isaac Asimov's foundation trilogy, and 'It's A Wonderful Life' will be sent up.
'We can easily make these clones, and we can make these copies that will reside on Earth, and if anything happens, the last resort is the moon,' Ha said. 'In Vietnam, I would not have the ability to make this technology. I'm very grateful. And on this 50th anniversary, I'm putting together a library to preserve humanity and pay back to the world.'
Ha said the GLPH have been tested in Hawaii where the High Seas were used to test the harsh environment on Mars. And after that test, the GLPH survived. Ha has also promised News 8 that this story will be etch onto a GLPH and sent up into space later this year.
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