The Artemis Program of NASA will soon deliver humans back to the Moon. It has been half a century since the last human, Commander Gene Cernan, stepped on the lunar surface during the Apollo 17 mission on December 13, 1972.
Once a lunar base for humans is established, an important priority should be to endow it with a computer system that backs up all the information necessary to reboot life on Earth. This includes the genetic information on all forms of terrestrial life as well as information on all human creations, including books, music and content of the internet. The lunar data repository would serve the same purpose as the backup and recovery system on a “cloud” computing and storage provider that I recently purchased for my new computer. On a clear night, the Moon would appear like the ultimate “cloud” for data storage.
The lunar information backup can be updated routinely through laser communication channels from data transmitters on the surface of Earth. Within decades, the lunar base might still include a small number of people. But if a catastrophe hits Earth, the backup system will enable them to follow a recovery plan.
There are many existential risks for life on Earth, including climate change, a nuclear world-war, pandemics, asteroid impact, the Sun boiling off our oceans and rivers, or an unexpected calamity from a rare astrophysical event like a gamma-ray burst. The likelihood of any of these phenomena wiping out humanity is highly uncertain, but worth a backup and recovery plan.
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