Moon

Lunar Library Launched

- Adam Clare

A couple weeks ago a rocket blasted into space to deliver a satellite into orbit, this sort of thing is now routine. However, this rocket carried a unique payload destined for the lunar surface: a library. The Arch Mission Foundation is piggy backing a special disc on Spaxe IL’s lunar mission. The disc holds all sorts of information that may outlast humanity so future civilizations can get a glimpse into the past. If all goes well it will land on the surface of the Moon on April 11th.

In addition to the English version of the Wikipedia (approximately 7.5M printed pages), the Library contains more than 25,000 books and other resources, including collections from Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive, and the Long Now Foundation Rosetta and PanLex datasets, which provide a linguistic key to 5000 languages with 1.5 billion cross-language translations. The Library also holds a long-duration duplicate of SpaceIL’s Israeli Time Capsule, and several other private archives and special collections.

“Our goal is to provide a backup of human civilization,” said Nova Spivack, co-founder of the Arch Mission Foundation. “Instead of trying to create a generic representation of humanity, our approach is to send crowdsourced resources like the Wikipedia, and many other datasets.”

Read more.

Al Gore Wants to Shoot for the Environmental Moon

- Adam Clare

Alright, so the title maybe a little misleading, but Al Gore is at it again. He’s calling upon the USA to put as much effort and energy into creating a green economy as it did to get men on the moon.

Just as John F. Kennedy set his sights on the moon, Al Gore is challenging the nation to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other Earth-friendly energy sources within 10 years, an audacious goal he hopes the next president will embrace.
…
“I have never seen an opportunity for the country like the one that’s emerging now,” Gore told The Associated Press in an interview previewing a speech on global warming he was to deliver Thursday in Washington.

Gore said he fully understands the magnitude of the challenge.

The Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan group that he chairs, estimates the cost of transforming the nation to so-called clean electricity sources at $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion over 30 years in public and private money. But he says it would cost about as much to build ozone-killing coal plants to satisfy current demand.

“This is an investment that will pay itself back many times over,” Gore said. “It’s an expensive investment but not compared to the rising cost of continuing to invest in fossil fuels.”

Lunar Ark for Humanity

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

moon
Every time I see the moon I think “gee, wouldn’t the moon be a great place to dump all that stuff humans create?” Actually I don’t think that at all, but some people have.

We’ve already seen a proposal to turn the floating rock into a library. Sure, that idea wasn’t the best. This refined idea has more traction I think.

A group called Alliance to Rescue Civilization (ARC) want to ensure that no matter what happens on the planet Earth, human knowledge will be on the moon.

“In the event of a global catastrophe, the ARC facilities will be prepared to reintroduce lost technology, art, history, crops, livestock, and, if necessary, even human beings to the Earth,” Shapiro said.

ARC hopes to finance the planned moon outpost into a lunar ark of recovery in part through donations from billionaire philanthropists.

Library on the Moon

- Adam Clare 4 Comments

moon David McKa, a (rocket?) scientist, is arguing that the Moon can be used as the best time capsule and a digital store hose for human history. Essentially it would be modern day Library of Alexandria – but this won’t burn down.

Astronauts would setup a digital store house and could update it with future voyages to the Moon.

Storing things on the moon means no worries about oxygen eroding materials. Other environmental concerns that damage books and other materials on Earth wouldn’t be a problem in outer space. The Moon is also the only place that humans have yet to pillage, and should stay that a way for awhile to come.

Scroll To Top