Lunar Library Archives

October 7, 2022October 7, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

The Moon is the Perfect Spot for Humanity’s Offsite Backup

In a recent study, a collaborative team of researchers discuss the potential for future lunar settlers to establish a backup data storage system of human activity in the event of a global catastrophe on Earth that could be used to recover human civilization on a post-catastrophe planet. This comes as NASA’s Artemis missions plan to send people back to the Moon for the first time since 1972, coupled with current global events such as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the War in Ukraine, with Russian President Vladimir Putin recently threatening nuclear war. Given the current state of world affairs, how important is it to establish a type of off-world data backup?

August 12, 2019August 12, 2019 by Evan Gough

Hardy Tardigrades on Board Israel’s Beresheet Lander Probably Survived the Crash

A Full Moon, as imaged by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credit: NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio

When SpaceIL’s Beresheet lander crashed into the Moon, it was a bitter-sweet moment for Israel’s space exploration aspirations. The privately-built spacecraft was punching above its weight class by proceeding on its journey to the Moon. Unfortunately, it crashed, ending the dream.

But Beresheet carried some unusual passengers, as part of an unusual, yet visionary, sub-mission: tardigrades.

October 6, 2018October 12, 2018 by Matt Williams

Microsoft and Partners Hope to Create a Time Capsule… On the Moon!

The #MemoriesInDNA project intends to create an archive of human knowledge which will be sent to the Moon. Credit and copyright: John Brimacombe.

Time capsules are a fun and time-honored way to preserve pieces of the past. In most cases, they include photographs, mementos and other items of personal value, things that give future generations a sense of what life was like in the past. But what if we intend to preserve the memories and experiences of an entire species for thousands of years? What would we choose to squirrel away then, and where would be place it?

That’s precisely what researchers from the Molecular Information Systems Lab at the University of Washington (UW) and Microsoft had in mind when they announced their #MemoriesInDNA project. This project invites people to submit photos that will be encoded in DNA and stored for millennia. And thanks to a new partnership with the Arch Mission Foundation, this capsule will be sent to the Moon in 2020!

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