Scientists from Arizona propose changing the moon into Earth’s lunar repository

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) – According to a University of Arizona scientist and his students, natural underground caverns on the Moon could be used to store frozen samples of terrestrial species to protect biodiversity in the event of a global catastrophe.

Jekan Thanga, a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, and five of his students presented a paper on the concept at the international IEEE Aerospace Conference, held almost this year, earlier this month, the Arizona Daily Star reported.

Thanga said the underground biological repository would serve as a backup copy of frozen seeds, spores, sperm and egg samples from most terrestrial species. The specimens would be kept safe in the caves carved hundreds of feet below the surface of the moon by molten lava.

The caves, some large enough to contain a 30-story building, can be reached by rocket from Earth in four to five days and have provided a near-undisturbed environment for the past 3 to 4 billion years, scientists said.

University PhD candidate Álvaro Díaz-Flores Caminero and student Claire Pedersen were the paper’s lead authors. They said the idea came from the biblical story of Noah’s Ark, but instead of two from each animal, the moon ark would store 50 samples of each of the chosen species in a high-tech archive manned by robots and powered by solar panels. . The group has been researching ideas during a global catastrophe for at least seven years.

“There is no such thing on planet Earth. There is nothing more secure, ”said Thanga, adding that it serves as ‘an insurance policy’ in the event of a global disaster.

Thanga estimates it could take as little as five years and 15 space launches to create the repository.

Thanga also said it would be similar to that of the Svalbard Seed Bank, an existing repository in Norway with hundreds of thousands of plant samples. Instead, the one on the moon would contain as many as 1 million different seed packets.

The group hopes to send 6.7 million species to the moon, representing 90% of all known plants and animals, minus those that cannot be cryogenically preserved, he said. It is unclear what will happen to the monsters once on the moon.

“We want to keep it for a time when we have the technology to (re) deploy it,” he said. ‘Because once it is lost, it is lost forever. There is no way to get it back. “

So far, work on the idea has been funded with a grant from NASA. The group has announced plans to release more details as they do more research, including how the samples could respond to long-term microgravity storage.

Díaz-Flores Caminero, a PhD student who co-wrote the first paper on the concept, welcomes the challenge. “Multidisciplinary projects are difficult because of their complexity. But I think the same complexity is what makes them so beautiful, ”he said.