AbstractA companion paper 1 argues that the geographic concentration of all protected assets at a singlecelestial address constitutes a common-mode vulnerability, and that for a broad class of spatiallybounded hazards, the expected loss calculation is strongly sensitive to geographic concentration,and that even minimal off-site redundancy may alter loss profiles more sharply than furthermarginal reductions in individual hazard probabilities. That paper identifies informationredundancy—an off-site copy of the terrestrial genetic library—as the minimum viable form ofplanetary redundancy. The present paper provides the technical framework for that intervention. Itspecifies the architecture of a standardized Archive of Redundant Coding (ARC): a passive,radiation-hardened payload designed to carry the digitized fraction of the terrestrial genome libraryon routine orbital launches. The ARC’s central design principle is that the encoding strategy mustitself be redundant across multiple independent pathways: synthetic DNA encapsulated in silica formaximum information density, 5D optical nanostructures etched in fused quartz for maximumphysical longevity, radiation-hardened solid-state electronic media for immediate machinereadability, desiccated natural DNA samples for direct molecular recovery, and hard-etched analogdiagrams for technology-independent decoding. A complementary sixth channel—directedelectromagnetic broadcast—provides non-physical dispersal. Each pathway assumes a differentrecovery scenario and a different set of finder capabilities; together, they ensure that no singlefailure mode can render the archive unrecoverable. At current SpaceX Rideshare pricing, themarginal launch mass cost of a 1-kilogram ARC is approximately 7,000 USD; total per-unit costincluding hardware, synthesis, and integration is estimated at 50,000 USD–200,000 USDper unit includingcontingency margin 18. The paper concludes with a policy proposal: that a standardized ARCbecome a standard secondary payload on all government-funded and commercial ridesharemissions, analogous to the mandatory flight data recorder in aviation.
Ian D. Reynolds (Sat,) studied this question.