If you’ve ever watched any film set in the (not-so) distant future, you’ll know that Earth is headed for a swift downfall, usually involving darkness, rain, and killer robots. To safeguard the best of our planet against our eventual slide into dystopia, we’ve decided to send a bunch of our important cultural artifacts to the moon. Just in case.
People who want to use the moon as our giant external hard-drive are currently relying on competitors in Google’s Lunar X Prize program (sometimes called Moon 2.0); a competition awarding $30 million dollars to whomever can land a robot on the moon that can travel more than 500 meters and send back hi-def images and video. The hope is, whichever company achieves this feat would also be willing to send a few of Earth’s cultural gems to hang out forever on the moon, as well.
It’s currently likely that the first books to head to the moon would be religious and philosophical texts like the Torah, the Veda, and the I Ching. Each book would be encased in a capsules tested by the European Space Agency, designed to protect them for at least 10,000 years. These books would join the red leather Bible Apollo 15 commander David Scott left on the control console of his moon buggy.
The eventual hope is to also use the moon to store artistic works, as well as samples of human DNA, in the case that we as a species should ever become extinct, or the Reapers return from dark space to annihilate all organic life.
(via Washington Post, image by Ricardo Motti)
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