Off Planet Data Backup: "Space Drive"

I thought of this idea as an off planet data backup for the human race. What if there was a crowd source designed and funded space launch into geostationary orbit of a modular spacecraft that could grow and adapt to greater and greater use and utility and had the primary function as a store of public domain information generated by the human race.

What if everyone in the world could upload 1MB of public accessible data for free and what if an organization could be set up to fund this off planet digital archive forever or at least into the foreseeable future?

It is hard to gauge the ultimate value of such a project to humanity and our future. What do you think ATS? Is this a viable project?

Interesting idea, but what would the storage medium be? Magnetic storage wouldn't last very long....

a reply to: machineintelligence

It's a cool idea and in fact already happened pretty much: www.kickstarter.com...

a reply to: machineintelligence

We have the internet today that does precisely that and you want to put it in space?
(I'll bet you are on Facebook.)

a reply to: AdmireTheDistance

It would have to be optical I think. I like solid state but I am not sure how durable they would be in space. It certainly would not be any type of magnetic storage like conventional hard drives I would expect.

a reply to: Aliensun

I imagine a global disaster sets mankind back to a bit more primitive state. If humans had an off planet backup of knowledge perhaps this future human race could get back up to speed faster.

Why go to the expense of storing info in space when you could back it up and put it deep underground somewhere remote.

Besides, if there was some sort of disaster scenario that meant the internet and everything connected to it, then it would be a world-wide event. So what are the chances of ever getting it back online again as everyone would need new hardware.

A backup of all human knowledge would only be good for setting up a colony on mars or somewhere like that.

SSD prices are coming down and so for a few million quid, you could have it all backed up for the short-medium time. More than enough time to allow civilisation to recover from a disaster.

Long-term though, then your looking at something new. A couple of years ago, scientists created a glass storage disk that can hold 360 tb's worth of info. 5D storage in this manner would be the primary choice if you needed long-term storage or if said data was required to spend long periods in space.

a reply to: machineintelligence

That's interesting you had this idea, I had a similar idea a few weeks back. Basically I was thinking about the time it takes for light to travel to Mars, how we're planning on colonizing it next decade, and how we seem to be getting closer to simple small qbits of information transfer... quantum entanglement. What I thought would be clever was to have a modular exonet of information, a chunk of the internet which acted as a cached proxy based on average inhabitants needs. You could have very quick common queries, and then use quantum entanglement to send a basic query. I also had the modular, periodically expanding idea as well. Just keep sending small rockets to clump onto the main unit orbiting around mars with large data/storage upgrades.

a reply to: pl3bscheese

Thanks, your post adds some rather interesting parameters to the postulate.

I'm not sure if my post was missed, or if perhaps I've misunderstood something - but as I said before this has/is happening. There is already a project of which a public and private data archive will be part of the mission, it's called Luna-1. The Kickstarter campaign to continue with the development phase has already been funded.

We will place a 21st century time capsule inside the borehole that we drill on the Moon to be preserved for about a billion years by the exceptional conditions within the Moon. Our time capsule will consist of two main parts:

The private archive will consist of millions and millions of individual digital ‘memory boxes’. As a Kickstarter supporter you can be among the first to reserve your place in space and secure a ‘memory box’. In time, you will be able to upload anything you want into your virtual ‘memory box’ just as you would with a real-world time capsule. Over the next 10 years, anyone around the world will be able to buy a ‘place in space’ – this is how we secure the longer term funding for the Mission. When we launch, all of this information will be inside the time capsule ready to be buried on the Moon.


The public archive will contain a publically assembled, authoritative record of life on Earth, with a history of humankind and a species database that chronicles the Earth's known biodiversity and how it all fits together – from geology to atmosphere. This archive will be available online both during development and after the Mission has been accomplished. We will have laid the groundwork for future generations to develop and maintain this hugely valuable research and educational tool. Publically owned and accessible to all, this archive is a hugely ambitious plan that could only be resourced by a project of this scale.

Luna-1 Kickstarter page

a reply to: AgentSmith

Will the user be able to retrieve the data of the archive or only upload ? A time capsule usually suggest it goes one way and then after a period of time it can be accessed one time only ... So are they making a two way transfer possible ? Or only one way and selling the idea, that the data really is packed up there in the archive when in reality it goes nowhere ?

Just asking because, to me this campaign looks pretty media heavy which means it probably is 50% truth and 50% BS, but don't quote me on that , its just my feeling


OP: In my opinion this is a great idea, and I would think the military already has something like that in case of emergency. I would be very interested in trying to push this into the consumer area thou, if we managed to make a proper project out of this.

PS: We could always use the ancient storage device orbiting our planet if we find the interface, namely Black Knight

a reply to: Thill
There are great differences in lag time the further out from Earth you go. I am talking like 1200 miles out not lunar distance which would be huge lag time. A Lunar archive is not a terrible idea but a "Space Drive in Geostationary Orbit is more accessible. The Lunar concept truly seems like a buried time capsule on the Moon. This does not sound like what I envision. I see this as expensive but accessible.