Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

In Which People Are Halfway, And Only Halfway, Clever

There are plans for a receptacle of crucial information to be placed on the Moon, in case of the collapse of civilization. Having backups is important. But ...

1) The planned lifespan of the equipment is only 30 years. Emergency backups need to be durable.

2) It's on the Moon, which is not very accessible to the non-civilized. The intent was for it to send the information to Earth-based receivers, but receivers are a product of civilization.

Let's say there's a reason why I collect some of the books I do, like the Foxfire series and The Way Things Work.
Tags: news, science
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  • 3 comments
christinaathena

christinaathena

March 12 2008, 03:01:30 UTC 13 years ago

The advantage of the Moon, though, is that things left there could survive for thousands, or even millions, of years. If humanity were to go extinct, and a new species evolve, if they eventually develop a space program, they'd be able to learn about us. Or, alternately, if an alien species eventually comes along, they could learn something about the civilizations that had developed on Earth. (I actually thought about a scenario like the first one for a story - the existence of a predecessor species had been learned long before, and at last space travel allows them to discover a kind of museum on the Moon, giving them some information about humanity)
ysabetwordsmith

ysabetwordsmith

March 12 2008, 03:44:24 UTC 13 years ago

That would indeed be the case ... if the equipment had a sensible lifespan and construction, such that it might still be functional. A lifespan of 30 years would leave some fascinating junk and likely nothing more.
christinaathena

christinaathena

March 12 2008, 03:46:23 UTC 13 years ago

Yeah. You'd probably need something simple, like physical records. Lots of books, pictures, etc. Any electronic records would be unlikely to survive long enough to be useful.