As our planet is facing pandemics, natural disasters such as wildfires, earthquakes, volcano eruption, drought, famine along with the threats of asteroids and the potential for a full-blown nuclear war, scientists say that human beings must set their sights on space to preserve life as we know it as humans might have a bleak future on earth due to climate change.
Scientists have now begun a plan to repopulate Earth's species on the moon in what they call a "modern global insurance policy'' that establishes a repository of reproductive cells of ''sperm and ova'' from over 6.7 million of Earth's species, including humans beings and the proposed sperm bank, or what they call an "ark," would be beneath the moon's surface as recently discovered lunar "pits" give hope to safely preserve the reproductive cells.
Scientists are confident the lunar pits is the safest place to store the cells as they believe the pits were caused as lava once flowed in that direction billions of years ago. Jekan Thanga, whose team at the University of Arizona submitted their report titled 'Lunar Pits and Lava Tubes for a Modern Ark' at the annual Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Aerospace Conference, stressed that the ''ark'' would cryogenically preserve Earth's species in the event of a global disaster and has the capacity to reintroduce them in the future.
"We can still save them until the tech advances to then reintroduce these species — in other words, save them for another day," he said. Thanga revealed the lunar pits are the perfect size for cell storage as they go down about 80 to 100 meters below the surface of the moon and can withstand temperature swings. The pits "provide readymade shelter from the surface of the moon," which endures major temperature swings," he said in the report.
Thanga in his report stressed that several plants and animals are ''seriously endangered" and gave an example of Indonesia's Mount Toba volcanic eruption 75,000 years ago as a reason to worry saying a repeat of such a natural disaster will see a drop in natural diversity causing risk to the human population to survive. Thangs said in his report that he sees a current day parallel to the eruption "due to human activity and other factors that we fully don't understand.''
