# A Lunar Backup Record of Humanity
###### Abstract  
The risk of a catastrophic or existential disaster for our civilization is increasing this century. A significant motivation for a near-term space settlement is the opportunity to safeguard civilization in the event of a planetary-scale disaster. A catastrophic event could destroy the significant cultural, scientific, and technological progress on Earth. However, early space settlements can preserve records of human activity by maintaining a backup data storage system. The backup can also store information about the events leading up to the disaster. The system would improve the ability of early space settlers to recover our civilization after collapse. We show that advances in laser communications and data storage enable the development of a data storage system on the lunar surface with a sufficient uplink data rate and storage capacity to preserve valuable information about the achievements of our civilization and the chronology of the disaster.  
laser communications; catastrophic risks; lunar exploration; space communications; data storage +
Footnote †: journal: Physics Letters B  
csc: 0000-0002-0002-339-0000-0000-0000-0000-0000-00000-0000-000  
The stored data should minimize biases and accurately portray human activities and their consequences. The Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes, launched by NASA in 1977, each carry a Golden Record that shares information about human civilization with any extraterrestrial civilization that may be encountered by them in the far future (Source: [[https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/](https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/)]([https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/](https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/)) (accessed on 29 September 2022)). While the Golden Record was designed to represent human civilization, the content curation process required making decisions about how we represent ourselves and who chooses, leading to selection biases [11]. A lunar data backup would be more comprehensive than the Golden Record, but the sources from where data are drawn can also have selection biases. Actively sourcing records that are not already compiled in accessible databases, including previously unwritten descriptions of technical processes or cultural knowledge from underrepresented groups, would be a necessary component of the data curation process. Social scientists and other experts in inter-cultural communication are more well equipped than technical experts to ensure a selection of content that represents all of humanity and adequately portrays the information we wish to share, suggesting the need for their involvement in the content curation process [12]. In some cases, the preservation of physical artifacts--such as crop samples [13]--may also be necessary to best represent our civilization and enable recovery.  
Preserving records of the negative aspects of our civilization, including conflict and the negligence of catastrophic risks, could guide a future civilization to avoid making similar mistakes. If adequate knowledge is preserved, especially details about the chronology of the disaster itself, the survivors of the catastrophic event and future generations would have a deeper concern for existential and catastrophic risks than our current civilization. Future generations can then recover positive aspects of civilization while exercising caution with respect to catastrophic or existential risks by engaging in differential technological development [4]. The civilization that recovers may have a higher probability of overcoming global challenges and existential risks than our current civilization.