They’d build it in a permanently shadowed site at the moon’s south pole. Temperatures there should remain a very frigid –196° Celsius (-320.8° Fahrenheit). That’s the minimum needed to safely store most animal cells long-term, Mary Hagedorn and her team noted July 31 in BioScience.
And that, they argue, should make such this gene bank far more stable than any of those on Earth.
A heat wave hit the Svalbard region of Norway in summer 2020. High temps and melting permafrost may threaten seeds and samples stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the entrance of which is pictured here.
In the moon’s forever-frozen shadowed regions, a lunar vault would need no energy or constant human maintenance, Hagedorn’s team notes. And given the south pole’s low temperatures, she says, a vault there could store fibroblasts — “one of the most powerful cells that we have today.”
The new proposal would have its share of hurdles. These include what to do about radiation and the long-term effects of microgravity on stored samples.
By far, the biggest challenge will be getting everyone in the scientific community to largely agree, Hagedorn says. Then nations would need to work together on the plan.