“Scientists plan to burn large numbers of sperm samples on the moon. ”Those are real words from real tweet from The AV Club that sent the internet to snickering yesterday. And really, can you blame us? Sending sperm to the Moon looks weird enough, but when you name it that, it activates our inner oceans. But what is this story about? Are we really thinking of sending sperm to the Moon? And if so … why?
The real story here is warmer in summer than Cinemax late at night, as the idea is to create a cellar on the Moon to save Earth’s life in the event of a doomsday situation – not a happy one, but some pessimists, I believe. According to CNN, scientists from the University of Arizona have proposed the creation of a cellar – or, more appropriately, an ark that will serve as a “modern global insurance policy.” The ark would hold 6.7 million genetic samples from all sorts of species, and yes, that includes sperm, but also eggs, seeds, spores, and all sorts of things. These samples, under this plan, would all be cryogenically frozen. And the load of these specimens in such a large cellar would not be stored in a series of pits, caves, tunnels and tubes beneath the lunar surface.
So, yes, the idea is sperm on the Moon but also a lot of other stuff, stored there just unknowingly, uh, life on Earth is completely destroyed? “As humans, we knew intimately about 75,000 years ago with the Toba supervolcanic eruption, which caused a 1,000-year cooling period and, according to some, is in line with an estimated decline in human diversity,” chief scientist Jekan Thanga, professor. of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Arizona College of Engineering. “Because human civilization has such a large footprint that if it collapsed, it could adversely affect the rest of the planet.” So we need a cellar of genetic material on the Moon because we may be wrong as a planet.
I believe the “Moon Sperm” headline is happier.
The idea was unveiled at this year’s Institute of Electrical and Electrical Engineers Aerospace Conference in video, and is still just an idea at this stage. To achieve this, it will bring major advances in robotics and cryogenics technology, and also, about 250 rockets launching to the Moon to carry all of these samples. And then, of course, there’s picking up and getting everything, uh, stuff in there and… yeah. It is a complex idea and at the moment there are no plans for it to happen.
So, no, we are not sending sperm to the Moon – yet. We just need to keep designing for global damage the old-fashioned way with large seed cellars in the arctic circle. And uh … it’s just a seed, right? You know what? I don’t want to find out.
(via AV Club, image: Public Realm)
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