ESA's Scientist Suggests A Noah's Ark On the Moon

13.7BillionYears writes "Many are familiar with a supermarket tabloid (whose name eludes me) offering ridiculous headlines, one of the most famous being 'Noah's Ark Found on the Moon!' In an ironic twist, that one may yet come to pass. The BBC reports that the European Space Agency's chief scientist, Dr. Bernard Foing, has said that there should be a Noah's Ark on the Moon consisting of a repository for the DNA of every single species of plant and animal, in case the Earth is destroyed by an asteroid or nuclear holocaust. One wonders how you'd go about indexing every life form including undiscovered species and how you'd protect the DNA from radiation."

Comments

ESA

[Pi_0's don't shower]

I wish that they would publicize the things that the ESA does well, such as the upcoming Herschel mission, the upcoming Planck space satellite (the successor to WMAP and COBE), etc. Instead all we hear about in the US is a disappointing garbage idea like this (with no scientific merit) and the disaster of the BEAGLE 2. Come on, people. Don't take this seriously (and if you have the power, don't support this) -- this is basically a time capsule. Whatever we do to our Earth, I'm still sure it will provide a better record of life on Earth than whatever we might drop on the moon.

Terrestrial sites?

[betelgeuse-4]

Wouldn't a location (or several) underneath the surface of the earth be better. The rock would protect against a lot of radiation (and getting lead down there would be easier than getting it to the moon) and there are places where the digging has already been done. Any event that can destroy a number of sites located around the world would probably also have a serious affect on the moon wouldn't it?

Need something like this soon

[laupsavid]

We need something like this soon, anyway.

The next ice age (or whatever you call it when the glaciers are coming, because we've been in an 'ice age' for the past 2-1/2 million years) has been modeled to be in full swing by 2900. Unlike the last one, which lasted a mere 20,000 years, you can bet the Yellowstone supervolcano will go off and deepen this one, and maybe it'll last 100,000 years or more.

In the next 80-150 years, due to global warming, the carrying capacity of the earth is going to be drastically reduced. So we need to put something together while we still have population and resources to do it.

Re:Need something like this soon

[El]

I think building artificial "planets" will happen a lot sooner than finding another inhabitable planet. If you've got a Sun and an asteroid belt to mine for materials, what more do you need? Build a solid ring of space stations at close to earth's orbit, and it would support several thousand times the carrying capacity of the Earth. Plus, you get built-in redundancy; sort of hard to wipe them all out with anything short of a supernova. In the meantime, yes, storing DNA repositories at the center of some of the moons out there might be a good idea... if we can afford it.

On the Moon?

[hike2]

And the real purpose would be?
Say the Earth is destroyed or afflicted by one of the things mentioned, then WHO is going to take advantage of that repository?
Say somehow some people survive. The next question is HOW are they going to use that to rebuild?
Interesting idea but I think just a *little* bit early for its time

A
P.S.: If the Sun goes then that was pointless anyway. I say make it hang-out a nova-safe distance somewhere in space ...