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HUMANITY'S BACKUP PLAN: the Arch Mission

4/23/2021

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HD footage captured by ISS HDEV cameras on board the International Space Station.
By the courtesy of International Space Station: ( https://www.nasa.gov ).

HUMANITY, WE HAVE A PROBLEM
Most humans on earth are living their lives, going on about their business as usual, with modifications caused by COVID. Some of us are advance thinkers who care about the future and are directly involved in encouraging and causing changes in an effort to make things better.

A group of these people have done more than sit around and debate the long-term future; they have created the Arch* Mission Foundation because, to quote their website: *pronounced Ark

“Humanity, we have a problem.
     Our modern civilization, the most technically advanced in human history, has no backup. If a global catastrophe occurred today, most of our collective knowledge would be gone within a decade, and it would take centuries to re-build.
    We have a moral obligation to our ancestors, and to our descendants, to help reduce the time it takes to re-build civilization by building archives that preserve knowledge.”
The purpose of this non-profit organization founded by Nova Spivack and Nick Slavin in 2015 [incorporated in 2016] is ”to continuously preserve and disseminate humanity’s most important knowledge across time and space for the benefit of future civilizations.” To carry out this purpose the foundation intends to build and maintain long-term data storage archives: i.e. redundant repositories of human knowledge called Arch Libraries.

These are designed to be the most durable records of human civilization and to survive in multiple locations on earth and across the solar system.
​
Since the foundation’s creation, more and more brilliant minds have been joining the project. The Arch Mission Foundation is supported through grants and donations, and several spinout companies have also been formed based on related research will help to support the Foundation in the future if they are successful. The goal of the organization is to become an independent, self-perpetuating, self-funding organization that will continue to support the itself indefinitely into the future. 
THE FOUNDATION LIBRARY (SPACEX, 2018)
ARCH’s first mission was launched in 2018 by SpaceX on the Falcon Heavy Test launch. Its obit should take it around the sun for millions of years. This first Arch Library contains Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy which is riding in space with the rest of the library in the glove compartment of Elon Musk’s Cherry Red Tesla Roadster orbiting the Sun.

According to Wikipedia “In December 2017, when Arch co-founder Nova Spivack heard that SpaceX was launching a Tesla into Space, Spivack tweeted to Musk who jumped at the opportunity to include one [Arch library] on the mission - Musk was a book fan. Musk was also given the 1.1 disk for his private library.” wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_Mission_Foundation

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Image Source: arstechnica.com/2018s-most-commented-stories
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​


Image Source:
archmission.org/


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​​The Arch library, which is expected to orbit the earth for “at least 30 million years… was created using a new technology, 5D optical storage in quartz, developed by our advisor Dr. Peter Kazansky and team at Southampton Univesity's
Optoelectronigs Research Center.
” https://www.archmission.org/
Image Credit:  Rogelio Bernal Andreo
Image Source:
Petapixel.Com/2018/02/13/Shot-Tesla-Roadster-Space-1-Million-Miles-Away/


Certainly the Roadster would draw attention, should anyone show up, plus current data and photos are beamed to earth in real time.

THE LUNAR LIBRARY I (SPACEIL 2019)
In 2019, a thirty-million-page library of books, data, images, a copy of English Wikipedia, Wearable Rosetta disc, the PanLex database, the Torah, children's drawings, a children's book inspired by the space launch, memoirs of a Holocaust survivor, Israel's national anthem ("Hatikvah"), the Israeli flag, and a copy of the Israeli Declaration of Independence was sent to the moon in the Israli Beresheet moon lander.

This was the first non-government and first Israeli mission to land on the moon. Well, land isn’t quite the right word. The lander’s gyroscopes failed, the main engine shut down, and Beresheet crashed landed on the moon.

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Despite that, the contents of the Lunar Library one is believed to be intact on the moon, including the sample of tardigrades, a form of life that can go into suspended animation and survive in space.

At the time, the chairman of the foundation, Spivack, was accused of being a “space pirate” who had contaminated the moon.
          Image Source: archmission.org/

Other scientists claimed that tardigrades already exist on the moon. That’s a stretch, but an interesting plot idea for a sci-fi novel because the rumor includes the speculation that human DNA was also part of the payload.                           Nove Spivack, Founder and Chairman
                                                   
                                                      Image Source: marssociety.org/2019/

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At the time, the chairman of the foundation, Spivack, was accused of being a “space pirate” who had contaminated the moon. Other scientists claimed that tardigrades already exist on the moon. That’s a stretch, but an interesting plot idea for a sci-fi novel because the rumor includes the speculation that human DNA was also part of the payload.

It is true the Lunar Library contains several vaults of secret content, one of which is David Copperfield’s magic secrets, a secret recipe of queso, a microscopic shrine including relics and spiritual texts and a sample of the Bodhi leaf from India.

The Library is housed within a 100 gram nanotechnology device that resembles a 120mm DVD. However it is actually composed of 25 nickel discs, each only 40 microns thick, that were made for the Arch Mission Foundation by NanoArchival. If you are interested in the technology, go to: https://www.archmission.org/spaceil


THE LEO LIBRARY (SPACECHAIN, 2018)In October 2018, SpaceChain and Arch Mission Foundation launched a cubesat ‒ a miniaturized satellite for space research that is slightly less than 4” square ‒ containing a live blockchain node into low-Earth orbit. The cubesat contained a copy of the English Wikipedia in a solid-state Arch Library.       

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◄ Image Source: archmission.org/​

​​▼  Image source:/space.skyrocket.de/cubesat.htm
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The LEO Library, is part of the Arch Mission’s Billion Year Archive™ initiative, which seeks to fill the solar system with indelible records of human civilization.

The is the first cubesat in a constellation of interplanetary blockchain nodes that ARCH Mission expects to send into space, with the goal to provide decentralized data synchronization and transactional infrastructure across the solar system.

More than 1350 cubesats have been launched successfully into orbit [total, not not just by Arch Mission] and more than 90 have been destroyed in launch failures.


THE LUNAR LIBRARY II (ASTROBOTIC, 2021)▼The second installment of the Lunar Library will be launched in 2021. This version contains additional information. The Arch Mission Foundation is delivering the second installment in the Lunar Library, containing additional content, in an upcoming mission with Astrobotic to the lunar surface.
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          This Chief Arch Library contains datasets of human knowledge and culture, including the entire Wikipedia in English, datasets from the Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg, and many more.

​ The Lunar Library 2 is printed on nickel NanoFiche, an ultra durable analog storage medium developed by Arch Mission Scientist, Bruce Ha.

​                                                                                                             Image Source: archmission.org/
WHO IS MAKING THE DECISIONS?
I was surprised to find little information on this project, other than from The Arch Foundation itself, and paltry discussions about the ramifications of the entire idea.

Personally, I believe this is an incredible commitment to humanity and its continuation. It may sound like science fiction to even assume the need for such libraries, but no one knows the future. So, kudos.

But I have to wonder who is making the decisions about what information should be put out there for humanity to need and find at some later date or for some other intelligent species to find. Will they be friends or enemies? How will they know who to interpret and learn the information? Are we giving away secrets that would enable other “bad aliens”, or “bad humans” for that matter, to conquer us?           
Image source▼: best-sci-fi-books.com/alien-invasion 

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How are we representing history and culture when there are such differences of opinion as to what happened?

I believe that those involved are making every effort to do the right thing. What amazes me is the lack of public discussion of the project, its goals, what information will be disseminated. I realize this is a private enterprise costing billions of dollars in private money, and I realize public interest and input could easily cause the project to never happen.

Still, isn’t it something we should be aware of?
JUST SAYIN’

□
Note: The Arch Mission Foundation,™ the Arch Solar Library™, the Arch Lunar Library™, the Arch Mars Library™, and Arch™ Libraries are trademarks of the Arch Mission Foundation

Sources:
https://www.archmission.org/
https://speedyessay.com/essay-the-advanced-thinker/
https://science.howstuffworks.com/lunar-library-backup-human-knowledge-on-moon.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_Mission_Foundation
https://www.archmission.org/structure
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/02/02/spacex-test-sn9-faa-license/
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/2/6/16981856/space-x-tesla-falcon-heavy-live-stream-mars
https://www.astrobotic.com/2018/5/15/arch-mission-foundation-partners-with-astrobotic-to-launch-historic-lunar-library
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/if-you-think-nasa-is-frustrated-with-spacex-youre-probably-right/
https://petapixel.com/2018/02/13/shot-tesla-roadster-space-1-million-miles-away/
https://www.facebook.com/archmission/?__xts__[0]=68.ARA7US6yZgNOm7yS7Z9S07r7zDj4bmyb62bSjKqDQvhrUvhdSijKvLhHzSDuJmT3HS2JcqVNzYTWHStB38O_kBYgcwzN6XuICPlIIScp9BW1DATF5HvsWOhMvveXVvYN_vYBRIOB653F3THWg2Ya5r6jzv6jcbQLpaP-9iO5BInKUp-Xr0Nk_g05GKCXVHWVN16bV9q_Th3f
Photos:
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2019/06/11/xplore-arch-mission-foundation-partner-fly-arch-libraries-moon-mars-venus-asteroids/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/elon-musk-e2-80-99s-spacex-violated-its-launch-license-in-explosive-starship-test-triggering-an-faa-probe/ar-BB1ddEj3?ocid=uxbndlbing
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/spacex-secures-contract-to-launch-nasas-spherex-astrophysics-mission/ar-BB1dr5Gm
https://www.marssociety.org/news/2019/09/16/arch-mission-foundation-chairman-nova-spivack-to-address-mars-society-convention/

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    Author R. Ann Siracusa

    Novelist, retired architect and urban planner, world traveler, quilter, owl collector, devoted wife-mother-grandmother, great-grandmother, and, according to some, wild-assed liberal.

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