scientists propose another doomsday vault moon

Scientists propose another doomsday vault moon archive#

'We were a little bit surprised about that.' The 'Lunar Ark's' early concept designĪs for the design of the lunar ark, the team's early concept includes a set of solar panels on the moon's surface to provide electricity. Thanga doesn't seem to see the scale of the project as too big a hurdle: 'it's not crazy big,' he said. As a reference, the International Space Station took 40 launches to build. Based on quick calculations, they say it would take about 250 rocket launches to transport about 50 samples from each of 6.7 million species. Thanga and his team's proposal is much more ambitious in scope, however. Unfortunately, the lander failed and was lost when it crashed onto the surface of the Moon.

Scientists propose another doomsday vault moon archive#

In 2019, Israel planned to send a smaller lunar archive to the Moon of a somewhat different nature with its Beresheet Lunar Lander - the mission's 'Lunar Library' contained a 30 million page archive of human history. One of the design proposals for the 'lunar ark,' Source: University of ArizonaĮssentially, Thanga and his team believe that storing samples on the Moon, or any other celestial body, insures against the possibility of a civilization-ending event on Earth. Thanga also commented that the climate crisis has the capacity to raise sea levels enough that they would submerge the Svalbard Seedbank, a structure in Norway that holds hundreds of thousands of seed samples to protect against the accidental loss of biodiversity. Because human civilization has such a large footprint, if it were to collapse, that could have a negative cascading effect on the rest of the planet.' 'As humans, we had a close call about 75,000 years ago with the Toba supervolcanic eruption, which caused a 1,000-year cooling period and, according to some, aligns with an estimated drop in human diversity. 'Earth is naturally a volatile environment,' Thanga, professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering in the Arizona College of Engineering, explained in a press release. However, the researchers say such an 'insurance policy' is nevertheless an important goal to strive towards. Of course, such a project would incur the immense costs inherent to space travel, and would likely not be possible until NASA establishes its proposed lunar station years from now. Why is a 'modern global insurance policy' necessary?

Formed billions of years ago, and untouched for an estimated 3-4 billion years, these caverns would provide shelter from solar radiation, micrometeorites, and surface temperature changes.Īs the Moon's lava tubes measure approximately 100 meters in diameter, they also offer ample space for the proposed project's millions of samples.Īt temperatures of -25 ° Celsius (-15 ° F), the team explained that the Moon provides ideal conditions for storing samples that need to stay very cold for long periods of time.