Saving for the Future

It's official, the big Norwegian Doomsday Vault is taking deposits.

This huge underground vault is located about 600 miles away from the North Pole and will be used to hold samples of every seed they can get their hands on. They'll be cataloged and stored in the ultra-secure facility where they'll be safe from virtually every tragedy that could befall the planet (including massive climate change).

If all goes as planned, this repository will be able to preserve plant species for future generations. The repository will be the last resort if something causes farming to crash and, taken to the sci-fi extreme, will leave behind a record of what was long after our civilizations are gone.

Also taking it to that sci-fi extreme, if we've come up with this idea, can we count on other civilizations to have done the same? When we get out there among the stars, will we set down on some long dead planet and, nestled away in some remote location, find a vault with the seeds of that civilization?

Moving another step forward, will we be able to do the same with life other than plants? With the Human Genome Project long over and the data being sifted through and other, more aggressive plans being made to map and catalog every genetic structure on the planet, can we really be that far away from being able to put at least the recipe for all life on Earth into a vault somewhere?

Could we preserve almost everything about our world?

Should we?