Robert Shapiro

(with William E. Burrows; Ad Astra 11, September/October 1999)

Excerpt:

We who live on Earth are menaced by an array of potential catastrophes that go far beyond what is usually taken to be merely dangerous. And they require a truly radical strategy to prevent our collective civilization all of culture itself from essentially vanishing....We therefore believe that it is urgent to hedge against such calamities by preparing a copy of our civilization and moving it out of harm's way. Even if the Earth were turned into a vast field of devastation, humanity and its achievements would survive. Think of it as backing up the planet's hard drive and keeping the "disk," constantly updated, in a secure location. Many of the possible disasters would affect our entire planet, so the logical location for such a haven would be off of it, in a base on another world. The Moon would appear to be the most likely candidate, and we will use it in our discussion, but we do not rule out the possibility that it could be elsewhere, for example on Mars. We hope that the project would be international, and propose to call it the Alliance to Rescue Civilization, or ARC.

In addition to insuring the longterm survival of our culture, ARC would have more immediate virtues. It would provide a central, unifying theme for our Space Program, one that has been lacking since the demise of the Apollo project. Many citizens who find no point in exploration for its own sake, or spending huge sums to advance planetary science, will readily grasp the need to insure the survival of our species and its achievements. No debate will be launched as to whether this project will be manned or unmanned. To guard against the worst possibilities, the ARC must support enough human beings (and supporting species) to repopulate the Earth.

Once we are out there, of course, our perspective will change. ARC will provide a new impetus for the manned exploration and colonization of the solar system, which has slipped into the doldrums because of the end of Cold War competition. ARC symbolizes the migration that must take place if humanity is to survive those far future dates when the Earth becomes uninhabitable, and the Sun eventually runs out of fuel. The construction of ARC base would represent the first effort of human beings to plan and prepare for an extended future.

Note: The paragraph represented in italics was present in our submitted draft, but did not appear in the article.

Activity: The ARC Project

A group of individuals remain in contact to coordinate their activities in order to advance the above concepts. An early goal will be the establishment of a non-profit organization for this purpose. At present, the group has established a web site:
http://www.arc-space.org/ to provide information about ongoing efforts to publicize the idea. A mission description for our intended organization follows:

The ARC (Alliance to Rescue Civilization) is a project intended to ensure human biological and cultural survival through and beyond the next millennium. Its centerpiece will be a continuously staffed lunar facility which will safeguard the achievements of our civilization, from tribal traditions and masterworks of literature to computer projects and genome sequences. As resources permit, the collection will be extended to include preserved but viable biological materials (seeds, bacteria, animal embryos) important to the functions of our biosphere. This ARChive will serve as a backup to protect us against the loss of any of these materials from oversight, natural disasters and vandalism.

In the event of a major catastrophe, for example worldwide plague, comet impact, nuclear war or social collapse, the staff of ARC will function in a rescue capacity rather than as librarians. They will be prepared to help the survivors reestablish a functioning technological society, or in the worst instance, to repopulate the Earth themselves, and re-introduce the additionally needed biological species here. The primary mission of ARC will be to secure our tenancy of this planet, although it is fully compatible with plans to extend human settlement beyond the Earth-Moon system.

ARC will provide our manned space program with the central purpose which it has so sorely lacked, linking it firmly to human survival on our home planet and elsewhere. The ARC facility will stand as a visible and inspiring symbol of our aspirations, one which can overcome the negative connotations associated with disaster relief. With ARC in place, of course, other scientific and commercial uses of space will be facilitated. ARC can serve as an engine that pulls many freight cars.

The large scope and lengthy time span needed for ARC will require a comparable support system. Hopefully, some version of the project will continue as long as earth remains habitable - it transcends national boundaries and the lifetimes of administrations and political systems. While funding from national space agencies and the corporate sector for research and development on specific systems would be accepted, adaptive archiving technology, for example, its core sustenance will be based on private sector philanthropy. As an international, privately endowed Foundation, it could not easily be held hostage by unfavorable local circumstances. ARC will attempt to persuade a significant fraction of the human population to support its activities, but has no need to achieve a consensus. Religious groups who believe Earth is a staging ground from which we all will soon be called to the hereafter, and nihilists who feel that any effort to secure our future is futile, can simply be left alone to follow their own agendas.

A trek up a high mountain still begins with small steps. In the case of ARC, we will need to publicize the idea, attract supporters, and gather an endowment. At an early stage, a director, administrative assistants, and advisory committees will be needed. Among the matters to be considered are possible stages and timetables for project development, the compilation of lists of material to be archived, questions concerning storage and retrieval of materials, an inventory of potential hazards that threaten our existence, a consideration of the resources needed for various rescue scenarios, and the design of an initial functioning lunar facility.

As individuals, we are accustomed to insurance as a means of protecting things important to ourselves - our homes, health, cars and our very lives. As a civilization, however, we are driving blindly into the future with no insurance at all, despite the fact that we have very many precious things that we do not want to lose. The scientific advances of the last generation, in space, computers and biotechnology, have now made it possible for us to insure our civilization, and ARC is dedicated to that purpose.