Scientists hope to put a library of human civilization on the moon in case of a cataclysmic, civilization-annihilating event. It would protect against the wholesale loss of human achievement. [...] France, warned that a doomsday asteroid or comet could annihilate global civilization and that something should be done to insure against the wholesale loss of human achievement. [...]
"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," Ropert Shapiro, an ARC co-founder and biochemist at New York University, told the National Geographic News earlier this month. [...]
NASA already has plans to establish a permanent outpost on the moon by 2024. It also has programs researching how to react to dangers posed by asteroids and comets using, for example, nuclear-tipped space vehicles.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,502736,00.html
