What could safely preserve itself on Earth for hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years?
Firstly, its shell material would have to be extremely inert and nonreactive, secondly, a copious source of energy, and a comprehensive redundancy mechanism.
If contemporary humans were tasked with preserving a machine to maintain its normal functions for tens of thousands of years, they would have to build a sealed metal storage room, then create a vacuum, ensure absolute dryness, wax sealing, and such, yet they still couldn't guarantee success.
The 'Black Shuttle', however, made people believe in its capacity to do just that.
It was a chance encounter with an alien machine that was still operational, storing many kinds of advanced knowledge...
But for people to completely trust it, it still had a number of issues to resolve, thankfully, the base's scientists spared no effort to address these despite the cost.
