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Engineers propose Solar-powered Lunar Ark as ‘Modern Global Insurance Policy’

Artists rendering of the lunar ark, with cry-preservation modules and a preservation analysis laboratory underground in a lava tube, and an elevator shaft connecting the tube to the surface, where there are solar panels, a Ka-band antenna and an airlock.
Design concept for the lunar ark.

University of Arizona researcher Jekan Thanga is taking scientific inspiration from an unlikely source: the biblical tale of Noah’s Ark. Rather than two of every animal, however, his solar-powered ark on the moon would store cryogenically frozen seed, spore, sperm and egg samples from 6.7 million Earth species.

Thanga and a group of his undergraduate and graduate students outline the lunar ark concept, which they call a “modern global insurance policy,” in a paper presented over the weekend during the IEEE Aerospace Conference.

“Earth is naturally a volatile environment,” said Thanga, a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering in the UArizona College of Engineering...

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