Current planetary protection protocols focus on preventing forward contamination of other worlds. This briefing proposes a reciprocal obligation: Genetic Preservation—the systematic archiving of Earth’s biological information at off-planet locations. All terrestrial biological information—3.5 billion years of evolutionary innovation, an estimated 8.7 million eukaryotic species, less than 0.1% genome-sequenced—exists at a single celestial address with no off-site backup. We propose that a standardized Biological Black Box—technically designated the Archive of Redundant Coding (ARC)—become a required secondary payload on all government-funded and commercial rideshare missions.The marginal launch cost is approximately 7,000 USD–9,300 USD per unit. Total per-unit cost including hardware, DNA synthesis, and integration is estimated at 50,000 USD– 200,000 USD. The technology is proven, the launch infrastructure is operational (320+ successful orbital launches in 2025), and the financial burden is negligible relative to primary mission budgets. What is missing is the policy framework to make this routine.The ARC program is not a substitute for terrestrial preservation strategies—distributed Earth-based repositories, cryogenic biobanks, seed vaults, expanded sequencing, and habitat conservation remain essential and in many cases more immediately impactful. The distinct value of off-world archival is that it breaks planetary common-cause exposure: every terrestrial repository, however hardened or geographically distributed, shares the same celestial address and is vulnerable to the same planetary-scale hazards. ARC addresses the residual risk that no amount of terrestrial hardening can eliminate.
Ian D. Reynolds (Sun,) studied this question.