The European Space Agency's chief scientist has said there should be a "Noah's Ark" on the Moon, in case life on Earth is wiped out by an asteroid or nuclear holocaustSpeaking exclusively to BBC News at the British Association Festival of Science, Dr Bernard Foing said the ark should be a repository for the DNA of every single species of plant and animal. Dr Foing is head of Europe's Moon missions, so his thoughts on matters lunar should be taken seriously. He is concerned that if the Earth were destroyed, there would be little or nothing left of the rich diversity of life on the planet. His solution is to build a DNA library on Earth's satellite. "If there were a catastrophic collision on Earth or a nuclear war, you could place some samples of Earth's biosphere, including humans, [on the Moon]," he said. "You could repopulate the Earth afterwards, like a Noah's Ark," he said. For the time being though, Dr Foing is awaiting the arrival of Europe's first probe to the Moon.

The Smart 1 mission is due to arrive ahead of schedule in November. The spacecraft is testing a range of innovative technologies that should find their way on to many future European Space Agency probes. It is the first of what he hopes will be a fleet of robotic spacecraft sent to the Moon. They would be used to build a lunar colony.

View: Full Article | Source: BBC News

This would be a sensible use of the budget. Because if something bad happens then well as the article says.

Only one problem i see from this and its easy. People of say normal standing middle class downwards would not be there, it would be upper class, footballers, monacy, governement officials...

Actualy very few would survive, some scientists,some goverment elements and maybe some of the ultra rich with goverment connections. You must realize money for the most part would become useless, knowlege would be key to survival. No I don't think there would be a great demand for footballers in a post apocalyptic world, or super rich snobes that don't even know how to change a cars tire. they would be a useless waste of food,water ect.

This is not only an excellent idea, but esential. Sitting here on earth, we have "all our eggs in one basket." It doesn't matter who survives -- be it the super-rich, or whatever. This is about preservation of the species. Issues like who's rich now and who isn't are lesser issues that can be hammered out later -- but there has to be somebody around so that we can even have arguments.

Even the moon probably is not far enough away, although it is a first excellent step. We should have a colony on Mars. One asteroid, or a massive shift in the earth's polarity, or a nuclear war and there's nothing left. Have just a few dozens people cached away somewhere is our insurance policy for survivial of the species.

I agree it is a good idea but I can see one thing wrong with it......How would it (the ark) get from the moon back to earth after a global catastrophe?

I must ask, who would be chosen to go with the ark? and how? certainly the richest could buy their way, but is that fair? I think not. good idea though. in theory

So i may have a chance then being a future scientist

As for who would go you needpeople who would add something to re-building.

First off

Teachers - the best of the best - you need to teach people
Doctors/Heealth - YOu need them to keep people fit and healthy
Scientists: To get people out of messes etc.
Labourers - Woodworkers, steel workers, builders, carpenters to build stuff.

Moneys worthless but a ton of suppies to buil would be needed.

^^ that kind of stuff isn't 'saved' into your DNA. tbh, it doesn't matter who is chosen, we'll just 're-begin' again on earth sometime. and chances could be that our dna ect won't survive in the 'new' world.

did they say they would also include animal dna?

EDIT

^ yeah it did

While it may seem like a good idea... why? What is anyone going to care if they're wiped out?

Humans have survived through thousands of years and have faced many catastrophic events, and they didn't give up then and I believe we would not give up now. If we were aware of an imminent world catastrophe we would do everything in our power to survive, if not ourselves then for our human race's continuous existence and with as many plants and animals as we can. It might not work, but we will still try, just like Noah did in the bible. So Stellar, history has already answered your question. We would bother.

I was thinking about the prospects of this Ark on the moon or somewhere else safe. Has this been done before (besides Noah), by an advanced ancient civilisation, or an outside influence such as ET. It is possible they saw what was coming and acted by having an underground Garden of Eden or building DNA storage facilities on the moon or Mars. It has been said before on some conspiracies sites that when man walk on the moon they found ancient structures, and don't forget all the controversy of the structures on Mars.
I know it is easily dismissed by sceptics, but have a look at this topic, we are discussing putting a DNA ARK on the moon, so it is possible to do, so how come it would have been impossible before. If it did happen before and we are the result of the repopulation of the earth, then it worked, so it would be a very good idea to keep our worlds DNA on file, somewhere safe.

If all civilization on Earth is totally whiped out enough to warrent having this ark on the moon. How will this Ark get back to Earth to repopulate it again? All the equipment on Earth would surely be whiped out too.

Heres just a silly thought-

WHAT IF EARTH ALREADY WAS THE 'ARK' OF SOME OTHER PLANETS SPECIES. IF OUR PLANET EARTH WAS JUST SOME OTHER PLANETS STORAGE FACILITY.

Nice one Daks, i think you're thinking outside the box there and i love it! Great idea. But, what if all the passages in the bible concerning Noah's Ark were actually factual records of our species surviving a cataclysmic event in antiquity; much the same way as has been described in this article? Over the years people could have changed or edited the story and taken it away from its historical fact towards something more religious? I mean if you were to tell a child born after the Armageddon about how we survived it, how easy would it be to tell them that we went in a big boat, instead of explaining to them the principals of space travel? Perhaps this is why ancient records and tribal lore talk of beings coming from the sky?

Perhaps those myths and legends are in fact our history which has been distorted over the countless eras gone by?

umm actually that stuff is in your DNA we need smart people up there, as well as doctors just as that guy said. I actually look forward to seeing the rich people stay down on earth surrounded by their now useless money! haha im evil

You do not think that they would put something on the moon like this and not have the necessary equipment and technology to return to the earth when an ELE (Extinction Level Event) is over and it is safe to return. My thinking is that there would be a selected few that would be the caretakers to kick start life again, it will take time and resources would be limited but survive we will. Mankind will adapt and start from scratch again and so too the re-building of civilisation; a good example of this is the destruction of Atlantis to the building of the world’s pyramids of today. These things did not happen overnight it took hundreds of years, so it will take time to get back to where we once where.

Life will survive without our help anyway, but what was will be something different the next time, for example from Dinosaurs to Mammals. (Maybe an insect world is next).

Your thoughts that the Earth is already an Ark is also very possible and that whoever is the caretaker of this 3rd rock from the sun will protect us from an ELE, unless they didn't need us anymore.

No need to worry. The humanoids that visit us have already got it covered. For instance, in The Humanoids, edited by Charles Bowen, we learn that the very human like aliens who seduced Antonios Villas Boas now have at least one human who has grown up on their homeworld. I'm sure there are others.

A moon colony would not function as a lifeboat, since a major extinction event would leave Earth uninhabitable for complex life for thousands of years. Besides, the moon has no water, and a moon colony would not be protected from cosmic rays. Only our ten miles of atmosphere protect us from cosmic rays.

The only thing that would destroy all bacteria would be the end of the sun's cycle, when Earth will first be desiccated and then blown to smithereens, as the sun produces one of those pretty planetary nebulae. It would only take complex life about 1/2 billion years to go through the complete cycle of evolution a second time, though whether it would produce humanoids is not certain.

~~~Cebrakon

To be honest i can see were your comming from with this post. Its not a silly thought because if you look, i know this may be a little off topic but alien consperacys there is them of that were just like a play ground for them a video game if you will.

But if the earth is already a ark it wouldn't come to so big of a shock to me because some of the ancient structures pyramids and that people would of needed designs were did they get them...?

Maybe another extract example from your suggestion what if there was a ancient race who suffered a similar fate to what could happen to the earth's planet big natural or asteriod etc htting, and we are what has come from there civilisation and history could be repeating itself?

Why think of an 'ark' on moon? Why not think to avoid or stop the incoming disaster?
And if we might not be able to stop the incoming disaster we should send few animals and plants also besides humans and resources so that if unfortunately they might not be able to come earth again they would be able to settle a small colony of living beings if needed.

Well if this happens in say 100 years maybe even 50 we would more than likely have the technology to deal with it.

BUT you can never be to sure always have a back up plan just in case it don't work. So you would need animals, plants and humans there, supplies but the main thing is if we would evere return to what we are now or would be then we would need labs, power plants.

Though we could always re-start maybe we would have to go back to what we used to be like go through the whole ancient period again with no power just candles and stuff like the medievil period etcc.

Infact, the moon does have water in the form of frozen ice, though not enough to make things very easy. Still, there's enough for a small colony. Humans could build artificial protection from cosmic rays, most likely by using the lunar regolith to build surface shelters, but perhaps more likely, by building beneath the surface of the moon.

I think it takes something like 20 yards of lunar regolith to block out all harmful cosmic radiation. So radiation is not a "project killer."

The moon also has a lot of frozen hydrogen, which could be used as an energy source.

Building a moon colony is highly plausible. Even if earth become totally uninhabitable for centuries to come, the human race could survice by learning to live off world, on the moon, Mars, or even in artificial space stations. Everything we need is out there. It just has to be manufactured from raw materials. Even soil can be developed from the lunar regolith to grow things in. Remember, too, that comets contain billions of gallons of water -- they can be captured and utilized. Asteroids contain billions of tons of metals, such as iron and nickle, which could be used to build.

We could get energy from the sun, and convert comet water into hydrogen fuel. It's all possible!!!!

IronGhost I was just about to send this post when I read yours, wow I was thinking along the same lines.


Now I understand your current thinking on this matter, and as you say there is no water on the moon, but there is no breathable air either. You have to think about what we are trying to achieve and what we will achieve in the near future. We are planning to build mining colonies on the moon at the moment, they will have to start everything from scratch on the surface. There will be protected habitats built with air and water to drink (recycling water is easy anyway). Now you are probably saying yeh but not enough for a long term catastrophic event that might take a century to be a liveable habitat again, you said thousands of years but I do not believe that the last ELE which killed all the dinosaurs lasted that long. Well I put forward to you cryogenic freezing, if we had this ARK we would freeze the caretakers. Put the ARK on a fully automative computer system that will revive them when the planet is habitable again.
I also believe that we should not put all our eggs in one basket, we should think of other alternative as well. Now if we had the technology to stop this ELE we will try, but there are no guarantees, so we should plan on other alternatives, such as underground ARKS on Earth, on the moon, Mars, a space station or a probe to the nearest habitable planet in our galaxy, and anywhere else we can. Just to be sure.

That's the reason those are only conspiracies and nothing more. Think about it. Why the Hell should those nation governments, whose cosmonauts have visited the Moon, hide from the public the fact, that there are some ancient buildings found? Panic? right...


U see...if it was anything like you sad, there would be some high tech equipment enc. found, because something like that would not be possible without one. And, as i hope you know, it hasn't been faund...

Besides, if and when humans will build a colony on the moon, those woun't be apartments for someone to live there. The moon will be a high tech base for scientists, who will extract eny resurses from the rock if it's possible (and we allready know it is). And the moon will be controled by a large multi billion companys, who will care for money, not your DNA.

Someone mentioned "thinking out of the Box". Well, I give more % for the possibility that we're now in a computer simulation, that that we are some 'ARK' OF SOME OTHER PLANETS SPECIES, but who knows...

Shuriken we all know that the big corporations will control the moon and exploit it for all it has got, I have said before that whoever has a base on the moon will have control.
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum...c=61825&hl=moon
I am mainly discussing the possibility of having an ARK or too for the survival of the current species on earth in case of an ELE.
And it is not panic that the governments care about, it is control and the advantage they can get out of anything you do not know about. Information is power! People can be supressed or held ignorant.

I almost forgot to mention about previous technology from ancient civilizations, well after a few thousand years not much would remain or be found of ancient technology. Now this is because as our resources come from the Earth it will return back to the Earth when it finally breaks down to it's original elements (after a few thousand years, unless it was made of stone, then it would just erode)

so... being a docter is saved in your DNA... thats just a stupid thing to think. your IQ is not stored in your dna. why? because your intelligence is information saved in your brain cortex's, sure DNA may allow you to learn faster but it doesn't save your proffesion in your DNA. intelligence is information you learn, not a hereditary trait.
you don't see a DNA strand that only docters or teachers have. plus, baby's have a 'clean slate' brain, meaning theres nothing but instinctive and such information saved and nothing else. and no not even the information to be a docter

so yeah, I'll give you back you eye roll

Good to see people really care about the human race.



As long as there will be equipment that at least has some technical directions to clone our species, I can sleep at night.

Maybe keep a hot model's DNA so we can 'reproduce'.

IS THE MOON ARK A COVER UP?

I was discussing this Moon Ark topic with my boyfriend last night and he made a good point.

Cloning and Stem Cell Research etc is illegal on Earth, because countries governments etc don't permit it. But if all this DNA and cloning equipement, labs and scientists were 'stored' on the moon, then who? Which Country? would have duristiction over the laws on the moon? They could do what ever they wanted up there, clone humans, create half humans half animal etc and no one here on Earth would know about it.

perhaps, but then they'd have to launch all the equipment and build a settlement up there before they can attempt any of that stuff.

but I'd of thought they'd have to try and pass it through the UN first? << the idea to send people up to test it I mean.

Well that should happen in the civilized world, but the research departments funded by the government agencies and military are doing a lot of controversial experiments that we do not fully know about. If you do not believe me when I say, "we are not told everything" you should think again! There are things that go on against the current laws by those who said that they would uphold it. They will do what they want, because they have the power and resources to do it. The main excuses are "we did it for our country, or it was for our own protection, they would have used it against us first, etc etc".

Excuse me I did not mean to over express this issue, but this is a Forum eh!

This may be a stupid question, but wouldnt the destruction of the earth kinda have bad effects on the moon as well? So if the earth was destroyed or even slightly knocked off orbit, couldn't that basically make the moon go a little crazy...

I think we should set up camp on one of saturns atmosphere having moons, they all have Nitrogen and might even have water....all we need to do is plant some trees...get a little Oxygen mixing with that nitrogen...good to go...

It's not a stupid question, and yes it could effect the moon dramatically, it could also be the moon that causes destruction of the Earths populations, because of over mining or it was hit by a comet and changed it's orbit around the Earth.

Setting up other contingency plans is a must and your thoughts about the moons of Saturn is good but we should not stop there, we as a species will hopefully colonize the Solar system and our galaxy, if we can stay on course that is.

I'm no cosmologist, however I get the impression those craters scattered throughout the moon did not precisely appear out of nothing. Doesn't the fact that the moon has hardly no atmosphere signal that impending collisions with meteors etc cause a lot more damage? Plus how safe do you have to dig underground to be safe from a collision?

See my point is that the only thing that will save a project of this nature is "mobility". The ability to leave this current area and avoid collisions and events with everything and anything. When Noah was building a ship he had the right idea. However this new ship would be a living DNA depository, possibly in the shape of some advanced computer database with protein based synthesisers to create all the relevant information.

Thinking about it the two possible outcomes are as follows...

1. A living colony of humans in the ark ships where everything is catered for. Food, water, work, families, etc. It would just be like a big city/town of some description.

2. Cryo facilities. Where only a handful of humans are frozen and everything from routine "sleep" times to ships navigation and duties are performed by some form of AI.

More to the point I believe there wouldn't be just one ARK ship but various ones. Also the fact that it's not necessary to have an impending tragedy to take up this mission. Imagine some distant future where each country are in competition with each other to see who sends out the largest ARK ship to date.


All in all it sounds like a great premise for a book!

Don't worry, be happy! Astronomers have already catalogged nearly all of the Earth orbit crossing asteroids, those capable of an extinction event. And none of them will hit the Earth anytime soon.

Comets are another matter, since they come from the Oort cloud, and often just make one pass through the inner solar system. On the other hand, comets may not be capable of producing an extinction event. They could make giant tsunamis if the comets landed in the deep ocean. I believe this may have happened sometime in the prehistoric past, giving rise to the numerous flood legends from around the world.

Just a few points about cryogenics, etc. The only form of life that can persist for thousands or millions of years is a bacterial spore, protected inside a dust particle. The only form of human life which can be frozen and thawed and be viable is a blastocyst, not a fetus, and certainly not a human being. A blastocyst is a fertilized egg, which multiplies many times on its trip down the Fallopian tube. When it reaches the womb, it is a hollow ball, the same size as the egg, with a pile of stem cells inside. Only about half implant in the folds of the womb. The hollow ball becomes the placenta, and the stem cells become an organism. The morning after pill simply makes the womb uninviting to the blastocyst and the woman has a late period. Mistakes in early development of a fetus can also cause spontaneous abortion, and a late period.

No one knows how long a blastocyst can remain viable in a frozen state, but it is not likely to be thousands of years. No one knows.

Cheers, Cebrakon

Yeh and man will not break the sound barrier either, or go into outerspace. Please do not be so backwood thinking.

Wellll.... my first post here... maybe my last - lol

Does anyone remember Agent Smith's assessment of the human race, as he waited for the truth cerum to take hold of Morpheus?

None of the other (natural) races on this rock are destroying it... without even trying!

I believe humans are a hastily and very sloppily genetically engineered NIGHTMARE, concocted to provide stoop labor, aeons ago, when someone found something on this world they wanted but did not want to dig for it themselves.

Make your ark, dewd. Then watch the arena violence, on Spike tv. Our progress over the last 2000 years (namely that they don't actually kill anyone... yet) must be a measure of our ability to make progress, ya THINK?

Leave humans out of the tank. Give the universe a break!