'Lunar Ark' Proposed in Case of Deadly Impact on Earth

[The Nightbird]

Um...

Even if an event was going to cause the death of everyone on earth, I don't think NASA can send enough people to the moon to maintain a viable genetic pool. It would take far more than just a male and female as illustrated in the biblical arc.

The minimum number of a population needed to be genetically diverse enough to survive inbreeding is about 100... the amount of resources needed to send just 10 people with the required self-sustaining ecosystem equipment is staggering. It is certainly not a plan I'll see made available in my lifetime. (I'm 21 atm)

[HvSW]

The Moon Arch which I was reading about wasn't about sending people to the Moon.

It was about creating an age & disastre resistant database of all human knowledge.

The idea was that if some disaster plunges the Earth back to Stone Age, recovered humanity do not have to, let say, invent the nuklear reactor all over again from the scratch, but they will rather conveniently check the archive on the Moon for BP of that technology.

[Yirrk]

Originally Posted by HvSW

The Moon Arch which I was reading about wasn't about sending people to the Moon.

It was about creating an age & disastre resistant database of all human knowledge.

The idea was that if some disaster plunges the Earth back to Stone Age, recovered humanity do not have to, let say, invent the nuklear reactor all over again from the scratch, but they will rather conveniently check the archive on the Moon for BP of that technology.

Ruminating on the proposition...

Y'know... If Earth was plunged back into the Stone Age.... how would we get that info back from the Moon?

...and would we remember that we left it there?

[The Nightbird]

So... if only information would be stored on the Moon, then it definitely wouldn't be intended for use as a storage server... more like a memorial to mankind lol

[Mikah]

Originally Posted by Yirrk

Y'know... If Earth was plunged back into the Stone Age.... how would we get that info back from the Moon?

So... if only information would be stored on the Moon, then it definitely wouldn't be intended for use as a storage server... more like a memorial to mankind lol

Thats great, so NASA is building an advanced memorial ahead of time, thumps up for awesomely tax money spent [/Sarcasm]

[Cougar]

Some other news this one remembered me of:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...n1727208.shtml

[Kaiser]

w00h00


Does anyone even think about the fact that if there was a catastrophic earth impact of the magnitude to cause complete annhialation it is going to throw the earth out of its orbit and the moon along with in which case we are all dead on the moon anyway?


I think most of these people have way too much time on their hands.

We need to build a giant bank of outhouses in case the worlds sewer system completely clogs all at once.

[Agar]

Originally Posted by HvSW

(...)
The start was great - Apollo
(...)

Well, during Apollo 11 mankind visited the moon, but human spaceflight started over 8 years before with Vostok 1.

Originally Posted by The Nightbird

(...)
Even if an event was going to cause the death of everyone on earth, I don't think NASA can send enough people to the moon to maintain a viable genetic pool. (...)

everyone on earth, NASA, moon.
It's very unlikely that one nation alone would/could pull the efford to do such things.
(okay, Bush said: moon return by 2015...)
Today we have the ISS, which is, as the name states, and international project.

/smartass