... protect the human species and its civilization from destruction that could result from a global catastrophic event, including nuclear war, acts of terrorism, plague and asteroid collisions. To fulfill its mission, ARC is dedicated to creating continuously staffed facilities on the Moon and other locations away from Earth. These facilities will preserve backups of scientific and cultural achievements, and of the species important to our civilization. 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.
We certainly still need something like ARC to deal with potential problems here on Earth, though it appears the ARC team has moved on to other (more important?) matters.
The genesis of ARC goes back to William E. Burrow's 2006 book The Survival Imperative: Using Space to Protect Earth. In the summary to the book, we read:
We are living through one of the most dangerous times in human history. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons technology are proliferating, and missile technology is falling into more and more hands. Extreme natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, fires, and earthquakes, are becoming increasingly costly - not only in dollars, but in lives - as population expands. Environmental crises threaten to provoke massive famines and widespread social collapse. Asteroids the size of battleships streak within striking distance of the earth every year.
Not much has changed over the past few years, so the idea of a project to preserve some of what we have and know is a fine idea. Unfortunately, it does not appear to be on NASA's radar, so more will need to be done by other public and private groups.
Some government efforts are already underway. For example, the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership at the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in the UK has been storing seeds with its partners in 50 countries to ensure we do not lose them to extinction (see the Wakehurst Seed Bank area to the right). The Partnership already has stored more than 10 percent of the world's seeds and aims for 25 percent by 2020.Norway's government established the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on Spitsbergen island deep inside a mountain (see below). This is often called the Doomsday Vault. The Vault stores duplicates, or back ups, of seed samples from around the world. Given its location, deep within thick rock, the Vault can keep its seeds in a frozen state for thousands of years even if the location were to lose power. Of course, with global warming and even disasters that can readily change the Earth's atmosphere may change that equation.
Another group with a broader mission is the Lifeboat Foundation. From its mission statement, you might get the impression that the Foundation is more concerned about a human-initiated disaster than a stray asteroid:
The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards the Singularity.
Lifeboat Foundation is pursuing a variety of options, including helping to accelerate the development of technologies to defend humanity, including new methods to combat viruses (such as RNA interference and new vaccine methods), effective nanotechnological defensive strategies, and even self-sustaining space colonies in case the other defensive strategies fail.
At first, I thought the Foundation has some ideas that are closer to what ARC envisioned. For instance, the Foundation's Ark I is a project is to build a space colony of 1,000 hearty individuals to survive a disaster on Earth. What is strange is that the initial selling point for the space colony is to escape from a world that continually invades your privacy. In fact, ARK I is defined as the "ultimate gated community":
On Earth it is essential that diverse
groups learn to live in close proximity. It’s hard to live with six or
seven billion homo sapiens, and some people can’t seem to do it
gracefully. Space settlements offer an alternative to changing human
nature or endless conflict — the ability to live in fairly
homogeneous
groups, as has been the norm throughout hundreds of thousands of years
of human existence. Those who can’t get along can be separated by
millions of miles of hard vacuum, which in some cases seems necessary.
All entry into a space settlement must be through an airlock, so
controlling immigration should be trivial.Hence, the first thought is to run away from a meddling Earth rather than to save its civilization. This libertarian thread is often more pronounced than any scientific thread. And why would you want a "homogeneous group" if you are trying to preserve what makes the Earth unique? What races are you leaving to fend for themselves on Earth? This is not an ark but rather a luxury cruise ship.
Other ongoing and planned projects include AsteroidShield, LifeShield Bunkers, SeedPreserver, and SunShield (yes, pretty long-term if we are waiting for the sun's red giant phase). Such projects seem very reasonable in terms of future planning, though I am concerned that this organization might have a preference for who and what survives.
So do we have a solely scientific endeavor to maintain civilization off-planet? I am still looking but I have not found anything yet. And I would not mind a couple of competing endeavors so that we do not put all of our eggs in one savior basket. Maybe the Chinese are working on something. I will check back later.