People all over the world gathered around a project for the purpose of spreading life to other planets and leaving an everlasting mark in the universe. BeInSpace, a non governmental project, aims to preserve and spread life as we know it to outer space. It has opened a portal that allows users to send their DNA and upload Digital information that would be sent to outer space in the spring of 2009. “This is the only thing that would remain of us, and it can sprout life on a new fertile plant” says Solomon Byron, an excited user, that sent his DNA with hopes that it would last forever.
Francis Crick, a Nobel Prize winner for the co-discovery of a double helical structure (DNA) published a paper suggesting that life may have arrived on Earth through a process called “Directed Panspermiaâ€. The Panspermia hypothesis suggests that the seeds of life are common in the universe and can be spread between worlds. He also suggested that other civilizations could have sent it to earth. “Why shouldn’t we do the same? As an intelligent being we have an obligation to spread life to other planets! ” Says Agmon David CEO of BeInSpace and emphasize “Someday, somehow, life on earth will come to an end, perhaps due to wars, floods, diseases, or the expansion of the sun to a red giant. Our role as a civilization should be to help preserve life beyond earth.”
www.BeInSpace.com intends to collect 1 Tara byte of a variety of digital data such as web pages, blogs, letters, songs, stories, photos, ideas worth spreading,MP3,EXE Flash and other files- anything that is digital and is uploaded to BeInSpace . Such data, known as Memes, are nun genetic replicators that define our cultural information and expresses what we are. BeInSpace also collects DNA (genetic information) with participators receiving a simple kit for collecting their own DNA. Once the kit is returned to BeInSpace, they will separate the DNA from the cell, encapsulate it, and send it to outer space. “By sending our DNA into space, we will be protecting the millions of years of evolution that are folded within each of our cells, and assuring a part of life will float in deep space far into the future” says Agmon.
How far? To ship the memes and genes into outer space, BeInSpace has established contacts with Leading providers of space shuttle service and will ship the data out of the atmosphere, through space, leaving the solar system on a permanent celestial journey.
The cost for each file, that is uploaded, is a fee based on the type and amount of MBs that are uploaded. Every MB costs $2. Sending a DNA sample is $87. The BeInSpace ambitious project will contain a billion times more information then the Voyager and contains DNA that will give hope for the beginning of life in other distant planets
The founder of the venture, Agmon David, 27, says this venture will help people achieve immortality through his space time capsule. Mr David was inspired by a similar project by the famous American astronomer Carl Sagan who sent a gold-plated copper disk on the Voyager mission in the 1970s that contained sounds and images selected to portray and the diversity of life on Earth It also contained greetings in 55 languages, and printed message from President Carter and UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim.
“A billion years from now, when everything on Earth we’ve ever made has crumbled into dust, when the continents are changed beyond recognition and our species is unimaginably altered or extinct, the Voyager will still speak for us” Carl SaganThe BeInSpace ambitious project will contain a billion times more information then the Voyager and contains DNA that will give hope for the beginning of life in other distant planets.Mr David began working on the project a year ago – devising the website to entice subscribers and contacting space agencies who would launch the material into space.
For decades, time capsules were buried in numerous town and cities across the world in order to give future generations a glimpse of the past. But increasingly these projects are moving online and even into space. Last year, the search engine Yahoo set up a time capsule project that stored the electronic data of over 170,000 participants – including people’s favourite songs, films and movies – in order to create a “digital legacy” of our times. Mr David says his venture is taking the process one small step further on. His project, however, has been blasted by one of Israel’s leading scientists as a “gimmick.” “This project has no value whatsoever,” says Noah Brosch, a professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Tel Aviv University. “The space on the satellite could be used for doing some useful science. But people are gullible and will go for it.” But Mr David remains undeterred and convinced of the feasibility of the venture. He points to the 400 people that have signed up for the project since his website started operating last month. Every DNA sample will cost the buyer $87 (£44) and $1.99 (£1) per megabyte of information that the participant wants to launch into space. To send the gathered material in space will cost about $200,000 (£100,000), according to Mr David. Those who have already signed up for the project are expressing rather practical reasons for participating. “It’s like buying a lottery, it allows you to fantasise,” says Noam Permont, 28, a web media manager based in Tel Aviv. “Perhaps, one day an alien will find my DNA, and make me again.” Another participant, Liron Zur, 28, and also from Tel Aviv, says that he’s not gone for the DNA option – “it’s too expensive for my tastes” – but is keen to have his pictures in space. “I try and put my pictures in as many places as I can,” says the computer software developer. “I don’t keep albums anymore. But I try and spread them around so I’ll be able to look at them in 20 or 30 years time.”
