We’ve been huge proponents of both long term and redundant data backup solutions, but nothing to the extent being considered by the European Space Agency.  At a conference last month, Europe’s version of NASA considered creating a “Doomsday Ark” on the Moon as a hedge against some cataclysmic eventuality like nuclear war or other extinction event here on Earth.  While the ultimate goal of the facility would be to harbor and preserve the bacteria, seeds, and animal embryos needed to jump-start some semblance of life on Earth after the apocalypse, an initial deployment would constitute a “Databank” of mankind’s accumulated knowledge.

As the world we know comes to an end, the Databank on the Moon would be remotely activated.  The information contained in the bank could be accessed by survivors on Earth using specially built receiving stations.  Rather than have to rediscover how to manufacture steel or rotate crops, survivors could query humanity’s collective memory safely stowed beneath the Moon’s surface, in much the same way that the Internet aggregates the world’s knowledge today.  The information would be stored and cataloged in several languages.

ESA scientists hope to deploy a robot controlled experimental version of this Databank no later than 2020.  So until then, keep backing up your data the old fashioned way.

[Via:  The Daily Galaxy]