- Scientists want to build an ‘ark’ on the moon, filled with 6.7 million sperm samples.
- This “Lunar Ark” can be a global insurance policy for humanity against natural disasters and other disasters.
- The idea is similar to the Svalbard “Doomsday” seed vault in Norway, which stores more than a million seed samples from around the world.
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Scientists have suggested that humans could buy a ‘modern world insurance policy’ by building an ‘ark’ filled with 6.7 million sperm samples – on the moon.
The ark would involve the sperm and ova of 6.7 million species being shot at the moon via multiple loads. The samples would then be stored in a safe below the lunar surface in a ‘moon pit’, where they could be kept safe.
According to a report by the New York Post, it will be conceptually similar to the “Doomsday” seed safe on Svalbard, Norway, which currently contains more than a million crop samples from almost every country in the world.
The team of six University of Arizona researchers presented their idea at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Aerospace Conference, where they said their proposal would protect humanity from extinction.
According to the researchers, this lunar orbit could help populate the earth if a catastrophic disaster – such as a deadly epidemic, a supervolcanic eruption, a large-scale nuclear war, widespread drought or an asteroid – were to occur.
“Earth is a volatile environment by nature,” said study author Jekan Thangavelautham in his paper submission entitled “Lunar Pits and Lava Tubes for a Modern Ark,” adding that a repository of monsters on Earth remains monsters. vulnerable would cause destruction in a massive disaster.
Although this is a proposal that looks directly from science fiction, the scientists behind this proposal calculated that the distribution of cryogen-frozen samples of sperm, eggs, spores and seeds to the relative safety of the moon possible be a feasible operation.
According to a report by IFL Science, Thangavelautham said in his submission that the facility “could be filled with samples” in 250 flights to the moon. To build the International Space Station, comparison required 40 journeys.
To prevent the samples from freezing or fusing in the sub-zero temperature below the lunar surface, the scientists also suggest that the plant be powered by solar panels.
IFL Science spoke to Álvaro Díaz-Flores Caminero, a doctoral student at the University of Arizona who led the thermal analysis for the project, and said that projects like these bring humanity ‘closer to a spatial civilization, and to’ a not-so-distant future where mankind will have bases on the Moon and Mars. ‘
“Multidisciplinary projects are difficult because of their complexity, but I think the same complexity is what makes them beautiful,” Caminero said.