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How would the ovum develop and be nurtured? Sympathetic alien surrogates? Why not seed more simple lifeforms, such as genetically modified bacteria, upon hund

by parksy 13y ago

How would the ovum develop and be nurtured? Sympathetic alien surrogates? Why not seed more simple lifeforms, such as genetically modified bacteria, upon hundreds of "candidate" planets so that by the time our generation ships arrive there's a good chance some basic terraforming has already occurred.

jp555 13y ago
It was more the thought exercise itself than a practical approach. I just wanted to consider the benefits of very low mass offers to space travel. Sounds like you're talking about panspermia, which does seem very likely to me as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
ForHackernews 13y ago
> How would the ovum develop and be nurtured? Sympathetic alien surrogates? You could send along artificial wombs and some kind of computer/AI to raise + educate the first generation born.
- kjs3 13y ago
  Never been a parent, eh?
  - ForHackernews 13y ago
    \shrug\ It's all sci-fi tech anyway. Artificial wombs probably aren't that far off: http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2005-08/artificial-wombs http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2005-08/artificial-wom... There's a clear demand for advanced reproductive technology, and it would offer the secondary advantage of neatly sidestepping the current abortion debate.
    - kjs3 13y ago
      You're missing my point (which I suppose I really didn't make, so my bad). A child raise by machines is likely to be one seriously emotionally messed up child.
      - ForHackernews 13y ago
        Oh, yeah, probably. Still, there wouldn't be any frame of reference. Maybe the first generation of kids would all be weird and emotionally unstable by our standards, but they're be "normal" for Alpha Centaurians (or whatever)
      - icambron 13y ago
        Well, all kids are raised by machines, just usually machines called Mom and Dad. The question is whether the machines we could make to replace us as parents are better or worse. It's hard for us now to imagine artificial machines being better at it than we are, but, you know, so is relativistic spaceflight.

by parksy 13y ago

jp555 13y ago

It was more the thought exercise itself than a practical approach. I just wanted to consider the benefits of very low mass offers to space travel. Sounds like you're talking about panspermia, which does seem very likely to me as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia

ForHackernews 13y ago

> How would the ovum develop and be nurtured? Sympathetic alien surrogates? You could send along artificial wombs and some kind of computer/AI to raise + educate the first generation born.

kjs3 13y ago
Never been a parent, eh?
- ForHackernews 13y ago
  \shrug\ It's all sci-fi tech anyway. Artificial wombs probably aren't that far off: http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2005-08/artificial-wombs http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2005-08/artificial-wom... There's a clear demand for advanced reproductive technology, and it would offer the secondary advantage of neatly sidestepping the current abortion debate.
  - kjs3 13y ago
    You're missing my point (which I suppose I really didn't make, so my bad). A child raise by machines is likely to be one seriously emotionally messed up child.
    - ForHackernews 13y ago
      Oh, yeah, probably. Still, there wouldn't be any frame of reference. Maybe the first generation of kids would all be weird and emotionally unstable by our standards, but they're be "normal" for Alpha Centaurians (or whatever)
    - icambron 13y ago
      Well, all kids are raised by machines, just usually machines called Mom and Dad. The question is whether the machines we could make to replace us as parents are better or worse. It's hard for us now to imagine artificial machines being better at it than we are, but, you know, so is relativistic spaceflight.