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Re:How to Download All of Wikipedia onto a USB Flash Drive by kragen on Thursday October 06, 2022 @07:13PM (#33115377)
So its contents aren't lost if Earth's surface gets depopulated.
Re:How to Download All of Wikipedia onto a USB Flash Drive by samatman on Thursday October 06, 2022 @07:59PM (#33115764)
Putting it on ISS wouldn't help with that, although I'm sure this comes as no surprise to you, given that its orbit is a decaying one.

I like the idea of periodic Wikipedia moonshots, although the storage format is kind of an open question, I've wondered for awhile if a DVD made from e.g. quartz, platinum, and titanium might be up to the job.

A full backup would fit on 12 double-layer, single-sided disks; I'm being conservative and not using Blu-Ray numbers, since density and longevity are always somewhat in tension. Probably more expensive to put them safely on the moon than to manufacture in the first place.

Re:How to Download All of Wikipedia onto a USB Flash Drive by kragen on Thursday October 06, 2022 @10:28PM (#33116760)
Agreed. I think even bare nickel or iron would probably be fine. Holographic glass laser damage can in theory handle higher recording densities and, like your DVD, isn't vulnerable to surface damage.

In space you probably don't have to worry as much about minor surface scratches and oxidation, though. You just have to worry about outgassing and meteoroid impacts. Some of them you can stop, and some you can't. On the bright side, they're very rare.

I think common media formats like DVDs are designed with a lot of emphasis on speed, both of reading and of duplication. This compromises both density and longevity. If you, instead, allow yourself the luxury of FIB milling to write and an electron microscope to read, you can manufacture in any vacuum-stable material at all, and you can engrave your archival message with, say, 50-nanometer resolution. At one bit per 50 nanometers square, you get five gigabytes per square centimeter.

I think that with e-beam photoresist cross-linking followed by etching you get about 500 kilobits per second, and I think FIB milling is a little slower, so it might take a few weeks to make the copy — obviously unacceptable for a consumer CD burner but fine for periodic Wikipedia moonshots.

Re:How to Download All of Wikipedia onto a USB Flash Drive by kragen on Friday October 07, 2022 @01:14PM (#33124198)
Relevant material about CD-R and DVD-R archival: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33117813
Re:How to Download All of Wikipedia onto a USB Flash Drive by titoCA321 on Thursday October 06, 2022 @07:32PM (#33115546)
And what's the point of it in space? Knowledge doesn't disappear when it's not on wikipedia. If humans are still around they will continue contributing to knowledge. Just because it's not printed or recorded doesn't mean that information or knowledge doesn't exist.
Re:How to Download All of Wikipedia onto a USB Flash Drive by mynameisvlad on Thursday October 06, 2022 @09:55PM (#33116570)
> if Earth's surface gets depopulated

There are 14 people on the ISS. If they were the only ones left, they would certainly not have the breadth knowledge of a Wikipedia dump.

Re:How to Download All of Wikipedia onto a USB Flash Drive by titoCA321 on Thursday October 06, 2022 @11:34PM (#33117136)
And how would these 14 survive if they are the only ones left? Do you know that there's a whole support team to support them in space? It's not just 14 people. There are hundreds on the ground supporting them.
Re:How to Download All of Wikipedia onto a USB Flash Drive by kragen on Friday October 07, 2022 @10:32AM (#33121889)
Yeah, ISS itself is not that realistic.