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Posted by Roger Bagula on August 1, 2006, 11:10 am
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/01/science/01arc.html?ex=1312084800&en=47d325724da5623c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Life After Earth: Imagining Survival Beyond This Terra Firma
Alliance to Rescue Civilization
SAVING SPECIES The Alliance to Rescue Civilization differs from other
so-called doomsday projects. It envisions a lunar base where, in the
event of global catastrophe, humans could carry on, protecting DNA
samples of life on Earth and maintaining a bank of human knowledge.
By RICHARD MORGAN
Published: August 1, 2006
When the dust settles after World War III, or World War IX, humanity
will still want to grow pineapples, rice, coffee and other crops. That
is why in June on the island of Svalbard in the Norwegian Arctic, all
five Scandinavian prime ministers met to break ground on a $4.8-million
“doomsday vault” that will stockpile crop seeds in case of global
catastrophe.
While it boasts the extra safety of Arctic temperatures, the seed bank
is just the latest life-preservation plan to reach reality, joining
genetic banks like the Frozen Ark, a British program that is storing DNA
samples from endangered species like the scimitar-horned oryx, the
Seychelles Frégate beetle and the British field cricket.
To a certain group preoccupied with doomsday, these projects are
laudable but share a deep flaw: they are Earth-bound. A global
catastrophe — like a collision with an asteroid or a nuclear winter —
would have to be rather tame in order not to rattle the test tubes in
the various ark-style labs around the world. What kind of feeble
doomsday would leave London safe and sound?
Cue the Alliance to Rescue Civilization, a group that advocates a backup
for humanity by way of a station on the Moon replete with DNA samples of
all life on Earth, as well as a compendium of all human knowledge — the
ultimate detached garage for a race of packrats. It would be run by
people who, through fertility treatments and frozen human eggs and
sperm, could serve as a new Adam and Eve in addition to their role as a
new Noah.
Far from the lunatic fringe, the leaders of the alliance have serious
careers: Robert Shapiro, the group’s founder, is a professor emeritus
and senior research scientist in biochemistry at New York University;
Ray Erikson runs an aerospace development firm in Boston and has been a
NASA committee chair; Steven M. Wolfe, as a Congressional aide, drafted
and helped pass the Space Settlement Act of 1988, which mandated that
NASA plan a shift from space exploration to space colonization, and was
executive director of the Congressional Space Caucus; William E.
Burrows, an author of several books on space, is the director of the
Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program at N.Y.U.
President Bush has already proposed a Moon base. “He just needs to be
told what it’s good for,” Dr. Shapiro said. Dr. Shapiro has written a
number of books on the origins of life on Earth, as well as “Planetary
Dreams: The Quest to Discover Life Beyond Earth,” where he unveiled the
civilization rescue project.
In 1999, the same year the book came out, Dr. Shapiro wrote an essay
with Mr. Burrows for Ad Astra, an astronomy journal. There, they
formally laid out their plan for the rescue alliance, beginning by
warning that “the most enduring pictures to come back from the Apollo
missions were not of astronauts cavorting on the Sea of Tranquillity,
nor even of the lunar landscape itself.”
“They were the haunting views of Earth, seen for the first time not as a
boundless and resilient colossus of land and water,” they continued,
“but as a startlingly vulnerable lifeboat precariously plying a vast and
dangerous sea: a ‘blue marble’ in a black void.” A conversation shortly
after the essay was published, Dr. Shapiro recalled, resounded with the
earnest imagination of science fiction drama:
Dr. Shapiro: “We’ve got to use space to protect humanity!”
Mr. Burrows: “By God! Yes!”
The concept is not new, but there is some fresh momentum. Mr. Burrows’s
new book, “The Survival Imperative: Using Space to Protect Earth,” is
due out this month. And the physicist Stephen W. Hawking, who is not
part of the group, began arguing this summer that human survival depends
on leaving Earth.
The mission of the Alliance to Rescue Civilization has also attracted
the support of Col. Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, who
now devotes much of his time to the idea of Martian colonization.
“It takes a big reason to go to the Moon, because, frankly, it’s a lousy
place to be,” Colonel Aldrin said in a telephone interview. “But this is
exactly the kind of planning as a human race we need to secure our future.
“But the A.R.C. idea isn’t ahead of its time because it’s needed right
now. It’s a reasonable thing to do with our space technology, sending
valuable stuff to a reliable off-site location. NASA is certainly not
bending backwards to do it. It’s the private people like A.R.C.”
Born and raised within walking distance of the Bronx Zoo — and he walked
that distance often — Dr. Shapiro developed an early interest in
biodiversity. He frets over the frailty of civilization and the planet,
but he is not a pessimist. He compares the Moon-base idea to a
safe-deposit box.
“It makes sense to protect the things you value,” he said. “But we, as a
civilization, we don’t have anything like that.” The trouble with
doomsday, Dr. Shapiro argues, is that it is almost always rendered in
popular culture as grandiose, though in reality, many minor incidents
present substantial everyday threats.
In 1918, an influenza strain killed some 30 million people; a possible
new bird flu strain spurs contemporary panic. In January 2003, a
computer virus shut down airlines, banks and governments. That same
year, a tree fell on power lines outside Cleveland, resulting in a
blackout for much of the Northeast. Doomsday can be understated.
“But I’m not here to predict doomsday; I’m here for sanity,” Dr. Shapiro
said. “When we’ve gained what we’ve gained, we should fight to keep it.
“And, worst-case scenario, if it’s all for nothing, we’ll have a nice
museum.”
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