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Humans were evolved to survive in a razor-thin sliver of Earth's atmosphere and nowhere else. We aren't designed for and don't belong in deep space. We should
by tslug 11y ago
Humans were evolved to survive in a razor-thin sliver of Earth's atmosphere and nowhere else. We aren't designed for and don't belong in deep space.
We should genetically engineer smart creatures that can fare better out there, creatures with enormous capacities for cancer resistance, stupefyingly impressive energy efficiency, and staggeringly long lifetimes. They don't need all of our gravity-influenced skeletal structure and musculature. The fact that we're air-breathers is a particularly worrisome liability for being a space-faring critter. Little holes in our tin can atmospheres can lead to explosively bad results.
I'd start with something closer to an octopus and then throw (even more) intelligence at it.
- tomelders 11y agosurely it would be easier to build better robots?
- tslug 11y agoMaybe, if the robots can self-replicate and/or self-repair and have that creative spark, but that's asking a whole lot of tech that we haven't sorted out yet. Life has the replication shit already worked out, so if the goal is really to put intelligent life in deep space in a sustainable way, a genetically engineered super-bright octopus species in a space-faring aquarium with environmental selectors for intelligence built in might actually be more effective.