Arizona scientists suggest turning the Moon into Earth’s lunar frame of reference

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) – Natural underground caverns on the moon could be used to store frozen samples of Earth species to protect biodiversity in the event of a global disaster, according to a University of Arizona scientist and his students.

Jekan Thanga, professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, and five of his students presented an article earlier this month on the concept at the IEEE Aerospace International Conference, held virtually this year, Arizona reported. Daily Star.

Thanga said the underground biological repository will serve as a backup copy of samples of frozen seeds, spores, sperm and ova of most terrestrial species. The specimens would be kept safe inside caves carved out by molten lava hundreds of feet below the moon’s surface.

The caves, some large enough to hold a 30-story building, can be reached by rockets from Earth in four to five days and provide a mostly undisturbed environment for 3-4 billion years, scientists said.

University doctoral student Álvaro Díaz-Flores Caminero and undergraduate student Claire Pedersen were the main authors of the article. They said the idea came from the biblical story of Noah’s ark, but instead of two of each animal, the lunar ark would store 50 samples of each of the chosen species in high-tech archives maintained by robots and powered by solar panels. The group has been searching for ideas in the midst of a global catastrophe for at least seven years.

“There is nothing like it on planet Earth. There is nothing more secure, ”Thanga said, adding that it serves as an“ insurance policy ”in the event of a global catastrophe.

Thanga estimates that creating the repository could take as little as five years and 15 space launches.

Thanga also said it would be similar to that of Svalbard Seed Bank, an existing repository in Norway that contains hundreds of thousands of plant samples. Instead, the one on the moon would contain up to 1 million different seed packets.

The group hopes to send 6.7 million species to the moon, representing up to 90% of all known plants and animals, minus those that cannot be cryogenically preserved, he said. It is not known what will happen to the samples once on the moon.

“We want to keep it for a time when we have the technology to (re) deploy,” he said. “Because once he’s lost, he’s lost forever. There is no way to get it back.

So far, work on the idea has been funded through a grant from NASA. The group has announced plans to release more details as it researches, including how the samples might respond to long-term storage in microgravity.

Díaz-Flores Caminero, a doctoral student who co-wrote the first article on the concept, welcomes the challenge. “Multidisciplinary projects are difficult because of their complexity. But I think the same complexity is what makes them beautiful, ”he said.