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Thirty-Million-Page Backup of Humanity Headed To Moon Aboard Israeli Lander (cnet.com)
Last week, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried an Israeli-made spacecraft named Beresheet beyond the grasp of Earth's gravity and sent it on its way to the surface of the moon. On board Beresheet is a specially designed disc encoded with a 30-million-page archive of human civilization built to last billions of years into the future. From a report: The backup for humanity has been dubbed "The Lunar Library" by its creator, the Arch Mission Foundation (AMF). "The idea is to place enough backups in enough places around the solar system, on an ongoing basis, that our precious knowledge and biological heritage can never be lost," the nonprofit's co-founder Nova Spivack told CNET via email.
The disc aboard Beresheet is about the size and thickness of a DVD, but consists of 25 stacked thin nickel films that AMF insists can resist radiation, extreme temperatures and other harsh conditions found in space for billions of years. There is, of course, no way to test how long it will last, but if it survives as long as hoped, the disc may even be around longer than the moon itself. The top four layers are actually filled with 60,000 pages of tiny analog images that can be viewed with optical microscope technology that's been around for centuries. The images include a sort of users' guide explaining human language, the contents of the disc and how to access the deeper layers containing compressed digital data.
The disc aboard Beresheet is about the size and thickness of a DVD, but consists of 25 stacked thin nickel films that AMF insists can resist radiation, extreme temperatures and other harsh conditions found in space for billions of years. There is, of course, no way to test how long it will last, but if it survives as long as hoped, the disc may even be around longer than the moon itself. The top four layers are actually filled with 60,000 pages of tiny analog images that can be viewed with optical microscope technology that's been around for centuries. The images include a sort of users' guide explaining human language, the contents of the disc and how to access the deeper layers containing compressed digital data.
from what I understand, this is a private project with no relation with the state of Israel
So off-planetary backups will be a thing now?
"a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried an Israeli-made spacecraft named Beresheet beyond the grasp of Earth's gravity...
If the moon were beyond the grasp of earth's gravity, it wouldn't be the moon.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
There's a blank page at the end.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
enough backups in enough places around the solar system, on an ongoing basis, that our precious knowledge and biological heritage can never be lost
So if civilisation does crash, the sum total of human knowledge won't be lost. We will know where it is: on the Moon. But until we regain that knowledge we will not be able to get back to the Moon to read it.
And by that time, it will be rather irrelevant as we will have already rediscovered it!
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
"B’resheet" means "In the beginning". It is the Hebrew name for what many know as the book of Genesis, being the first few words from it.
Constitutionally Correct
It resides on the moon now. If it is removed from the moon before the moon is destroyed, it may survive longer than the moon.
Someone's gotta be there to tell them to turn it off and turn it back on again.
someday millions of years from now some ETs will discover a disk with a bunch of old testament style begats of a bunch of dumb humans that went extinct because they could not keep their environment clean and stable
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
The crime of allowing Christians, Jews, and Muslims to happily coexist without persecutions of one or more of them.
...unless they were born next door. In which case, take their property, build a wall to keep them out, bulldoze their greenhouses, and build settlements on their land which are internationally understood to be illegal.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well, when these neighbors keep launching explosive rockets, hoping to kill as many civilians as possible, that changes the picture a bit. Do you know HOW they got control of those lands? Hint: their neighbors wanted to wipe them out.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
... for 5.25" floppy disks in December 1985, conveying the slogan: "Professionals avoid all risks. Scotch 3M disks are safe."
In the background of the slogan, the full page was filled with an image of the starting Challenger space shuttle.
PopeRatzo just demonstrated he's an anti-Semitic jackass.
He was not dissing jews. He was dissing Israel. But people like you respond to criticism of Israel with the charge of anti-semitism, because it sparks more outrage.
IMHO the government of Israel -- in fact any country's government -- is fair game for rational criticism of its policies and actions. Such criticism is not a hostility towards race, ethnicity, or religion, even if some try to imagine it to be so.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
You seem to lack knowledge of history. Not long after Israel was created, there were armies massing on their borders ready to invade, and wipe them out.
If Canada had amassed thousands of tanks, and tens of thousands of armed troops right at the Canada/US border, getting ready to invade, wouldn't that make you a little nervous? If a war started, would be be wrong to grab a little of Canada as a "buffer zone" to help prevent a future invasion?
Yes, you are partially right. I agree that Israel should not really expand into those lands. But as to the rest of it, if Palestinians routinely try to kill Jews, should the Jews just let them?
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
You seem to lack knowledge of history. Not long after Israel was created, there were armies massing on their borders ready to invade, and wipe them out.
If you want to talk history, let's go back a bit further. The Jews got kicked out of that area, and then were reinstalled by force. How do you expect the neighbors to have felt about that?
Yes, you are partially right. I agree that Israel should not really expand into those lands. But as to the rest of it, if Palestinians routinely try to kill Jews, should the Jews just let them?
Would they try so much without the 1967 expansion?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Canada actually *did* amass an army at the US border once. In response, the US pre-emptively declared war and invaded. This resulted in the War of 1812. It's mostly forgotten now because the peace agreement which ended it included both sides ceding all captured territory, so very little was actually changed.
At least it will be easier to retrieve than the backups on my ZIP drive.
Recycle PCs and build a wireless community network www.hillsborough.org.nz
A decade back I propose something like this on /. Except I thought that color coded stainless steel disks would be a better option. I don;t that my obscure post had anything to do with this project but I'm glad someone else had a similar ideal.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Let me break it down to you: this disk isn't even going to be readable in 50 years.
Apollo retroreflectors are still in operation (well, good enough to bounce a laser off them anyway) and they're 50 years old and exposed to the vacuum on the lunar surface.
If the disks aren't directly exposed then micrometeorite erosion could take a few tens of thousands of years to get to them.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.