In 1969 American sculptor Forrest Myers asked Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, David Novros, Robert Rauschenberg, and John Chamberlain to draw a little something for the Apollo 12 mission. Their sketches would be shrunk and etched in tantalum nitride onto a 9/16 × 3/4″ ceramic chip, which would then be smuggled aboard the Apollo 12 lander module and left on the moon. Myers’ mission, according to mostly-verified rumor (and a cryptic telegram) was a success.

The convergence of sci-fi and modern art had reached its apotheosis: the moon as an ideal gallery—a floating rock the color of bone ash, with an atmosphere so thin that distant mountains are as clear to the eye as the nearest stone—and a ceramic chip as the perfect canvas. The result is a cosmic cave drawing: futuristic, primord...