Earth is destined for disaster. This is a good insurance policy.

•Humans, plants, and animals on Earth face the dual threats of climate change and asteroids someday striking the planet.
•Scientists believe they can preserve all living things with a solar-powered lunar ark.
•This compound inside the moon's lava tubes could store cryogenically frozen reproductive cells from 6.7 million species on Earth as a sort of insurance policy.

Few years ago a cataclysmic meteor the size of a six-story building broke apart above Chelyabinsk, Russia, and the resulting blast was stronger than a nuclear explosion. In 2068, astronomers believe a potentially hazardous "God of Chaos" asteroid could slam into Earth. Both events suggest humans—and every other animal and plant on Earth—are much more susceptible to total annihilation than we think.

That's why scientists at the University of Arizona are proposing a far-out concept that just might save us all: a 21st-century version of Noah's Ark ... on the moon.

This ark wouldn't contain two of every animal, but rather, a repository of cryogenically frozen reproductive cells from 6.7 million species on our planet.

Consider it a global insurance policy of sorts, says Jekan Thanga, Ph.D., the mastermind behind the project. Thanga is an assistant professor at the University of Arizona's Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, where he and a group of his undergraduate and graduate students have been toiling over this "lunar ark" concept for the past two years.

"As a human civilization, we're in a fragile state," Thanga tells Pop Mech. "We're not really that rigid or able to face all kinds of adversities. And Earth's ecosystem is also very fragile."

Enter the lunar ark, which would be a storage shelter filled to the brim with genetic material for the most important plants and animals on Earth.

From the network of lava tubes just beneath the moon's surface where scientists hope to build the compound, to the lunar solar farm that generates electricity for the underground facility, to the robotic lab techs, the lunar ark sounds like the setting for a sci-fi novel. But Thanga says the possibility for such a shelter is very real—and it could come to fruition in the next few decades.

While we Earthlings may eventually need to evacuate our planet if we're right in the trajectory of a massive asteroid, a moon colony isn't necessarily the best option, Thanga says.

For the past seven years, his team has been studying the moon's extensive network of over 200 lava tubes just beneath its rocky surface—the underground tunnels where a moon settlement would make the most sense.

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