by Charlotte Edwards
April 28,
2022
from
TheSun-UK Website
Credit: NASA
Joel Kowsky
In
case the world is destroyed, scientists are planning to
store human DNA, along with the DNA of millions of
species, on the Moon.
The
idea is that aliens might discover it in the far future
and recreate the human race.
Elon
Musk's SpaceX delivered a payload of DNA into space this
month.
Source
Inside
plans for
'off-world human
DNA seed bank' on Moon
so alien
civilization could 'recreate' us...
SpaceX just launched a
lot of human DNA to the International Space Station.
The Crew-4 mission blasted off on April 27 and part of the cargo was
a biobank containing DNA from 500 different species. One of those
species was humans and there are now over 2,000 different DNA
samples from lots of different people in space.
The SpaceX Crew-4 mission
took some DNA to space on April 27
Credit: EPA
A company called
LifeShip is behind the DNA collection.
It hopes to one day
create an off-world genetic human seed bank on the Moon.
The idea is similar to the Global Seed Vault we have on Earth.
The Global Seed Vault has the capacity to hold 4.5million seed
samples.
If there happened to be a
global catastrophe and a lot of life on Earth was destroyed, the
Global Seed Vault could help humans grow plants again or help a
species come back from the brink of extinction.
LifeShip aims to do a similar thing, but with humans and other
animals.
Its
website states:
"At LifeShip, we
believe that humanity has an important part to play in
continuing the cycle of life in the Universe and expanding life
outwards from our planet.
"We believe in
preserving the genetic blueprint of Earth's incredible
biodiversity as it is today for future generations.
"We believe in furthering the human story into the cosmos so
that we leave a legacy and are never forgotten.
"We believe that we can achieve this by taking small steps
towards seeding life beyond Earth and extending humanity to the
stars."
Sending human DNA to the
ISS was just a "demonstration mission".
The plan is for human DNA to be sent to the Moon in 2023.
LifeShip wants a
"genetic time capsule" to be put on the Moon's surface during Nasa's Astrobotic lunar lander mission.
The company isn't 100%
sure what will happen to human DNA in the distant future.
Its website says "because
the genetic time capsule is designed for the far future, none of us
will ever actually know for sure.
"Perhaps it will be
found by a future civilization and used to recreate our planet
as it is today.
"Our descendants could carry your code to the stars to seed a
brand-new world. While this is all theoretical, we believe it is
worth saving our genetic blueprints of life on Earth for
generations."
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