Stories
Noah, The Interstellar Farmer
"...only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the Ark." ~ Genesis 7:23
The Bible has a lot of weird stories - terra-forming, cities destroyed from above by fire and brimstone, sons of god impregnating human women which produces a super-race, heroes going up into heaven, wheels in the sky, a power holding together atoms and the universe, and, my favorite, the destruction of a planet by environmental disaster and the escape of all the biological information needed to seed the new world in a ship.
As a thought exercise, let's assume there is a kernel of very ancient history deep in the tale of Noah and his Ark, passed by oral tradition through generations. People changed the story in the retelling, modifying it to fit the primitive understanding of superstitious people.
Almost every culture around the globe has a deluge story.
Here are the basic details as I see them.
Water destroys life on the planet. Humans store people, animals, and plants existing before the deluge in a vessel. The vessel floated above the destruction. The humans found land and repopulated the planet.
Now, let's look at today and into the future.
Someday, Mankind will probably need to leave this planet to survive as a species. This will not be a mass exodus but the movement of a small population of chosen individuals. More efficient would be to transport genetic material. They will have to take the essentials of life, food, and shelter with them.
We will require a target planet - a body in the Goldilocks Zone, close enough to reach in a reasonable amount of time.
What's reasonable? That depends on technology. Still, the hurdles for that technology are tremendous.
The closest habitable planets are centuries away at current space travel speeds. It is doubtful that we will ever be able to store humans for centuries or breed them along the way, but it is likely that, soon, we will be able to sequence them, building them from genetic code.
Protection of genetic material from cosmic forces is another concern, but a shield of water or heavy metals for samples would be a likely solution.
The machinery and the power needed to accomplish this may be the most difficult task. We're a civilization that builds throw-away machines and technology, not things that will last centuries.
Here's my scenario.
In the not-too-distant future, we realize that life on our planet is ending. Planning for years for this inevitability, we have found the perfect planet - slightly larger than Earth, with an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, plant life, and abundant water. It is near enough to its star to be warm enough for comfort. Using a newly discovered space travel technology, we will be able to get there in a little over 100 years. Genetic research has produced humans from gene sequencing and cell differentiation technologies for many years. The International community has collected genetic materials from the plants, animals, and people of their choosing. The AI and Robot Revolution have produced the necessary infrastructure to birth, raise, feed, and educate these new humans once they arrive in their new homeworld.
The ARK Project will carry the last, best hope and the history of the human race to the new planet, Earth-2.
A more realistic scenario is to build an O'Neill Habitat somewhere in the Solar System where humans can wait out a disaster until the Earth heals. Picture an Ark floating in Earth's orbit while the waters recede, plants grow, the rainforests take over farmland, the animals go unhunted, and the seas replenish themselves.
Far-fetched?
Perhaps it has happened before. I only wonder if we'll get it right the third time around.