It is no surprise that the future of humanity and even the biodiversity of the earth is in the balance and therefore the race to preserve life on our planet has never been more urgent, reports Universetoday.com.
Species and ecosystems disappear with alarming pace, so that scientists teams turn to advanced solutions to protect the natural world for future generations.
A new paper Investments Cryopreservation as one solution, a technology with which living cells can be frozen and stored for centuries, while retaining genetic material and even whole organisms. This approach comes with its own challenges, but when we explore this innovative border, it becomes clear that resetting in how and where we protect life is essential for securing the biological legacy of the planet.
A new article written by a team led by Garret Fitzpatrick by Harvard & Smithsonian proposes the establishment of a Lunar BioPository. They represent this as a way to save cryopreservated samples of the most risky animal species of the earth with minimal human intervention.
Saving living cells in the long term requires temperature of -196 ° C, and no place on earth is of course so cold that enormous power reserves requires, but the moon, now there is a real alternative!
Some of the deeply shadowed lunar craters are in permanent shade and offer ideal conditions for stable storage. This moon vault would initially focus on the preservation of endangered animal samples, but could later include plants, microbes and other organisms.
Creating such a system will require considerable time, efforts and investments, because it depends on future lunar missions and technologies that do not yet exist. Technologies such as robot-like construction, radiation discharge and specialized storage and transport systems are possible for such a mission.
The challenge of keeping samples at low enough temperature is particularly challenging during space travel where materials have extreme temperature changes and radiation.
As a first step, researchers set for testing a simple, proven system: a Stirling Cryocooler in an isolated biocapsule that keeps samples at -196 ° C during a mission to the moon. This concept at an early stage is intended to be ready for a NASA or commercial mission within the next 1-2 years.
If it is successful, the development of a cryogenic storage and transport system for a future moon biorpositorory can offer wider benefits that go beyond the preservation of organic samples. It can also be used to collect and store other materials, such as frozen lunar water.
Scaling and refining this system for various example types would offer valuable experience in treatment, logistics and operations, supporting a wide range of future lunar missions and scientific goals.
The vision of a Lunar BioPository is fat and represents a transforming step in both nature conservation science and space exploration.
By combining the urgency of protecting the biodiversity of the earth with the exploratory missions of technological ambitions, this proposal bridges planetary conservation with interplanetary potential.
Although many challenges are for us, from engineering to logistics, the results can be in-depth for a safe, long-term refuge for the genetic blueprint of life and opening new doors for scientific discovery.
