Saved by the Moon: Imaginaries of Earthly Afterlife in Space

Abstract

Today, emergent space technology engages in visions of future off-world colonizing, while conservation technology is employed in ensuring the continuation of life on earth. In this article, we combine social science of outer space literature with biodiversity conservation work to analyze how utopian visions of off-world futures and dystopian visions of earth entangle in technoscientific future-making practices. Our case is the Lunar Ark, which is a proposed technoscientific project for a conservation base to be assembled inside the moon’s lava tubes comprising samples of the earth’s ecosystems. We investigate two interwoven imaginaries involving an imaginary of the Lunar Ark as a “reseeding of earth” and secondly, an imaginary in which the Lunar Ark becomes a platform for “escaping earth.” Based on scientific papers, web material, news articles, an interview with the head of the research group, and ethnographic observations, we conclude that the Lunar Ark engages with a speculative bioeconomy, wherein earth is imagined as an unstable and unfit protector of life. In contrast, the Lunar Ark emerges as a pan-humanitarian and maternal-like technoscientific environment.