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Why aren't people thinking about sending various robots/devices that could terraform planets before humans going in to live there? Is this something that is imp

Why aren't people thinking about sending various robots/devices that could terraform planets before humans going in to live there? Is this something that is impossible to do/imagine? what am I missing?

stickfigure 12y ago
Alternatively, why aren't we talking about venusforming humans? All space operas seem to start with the earth-standard human in a suit. Compared to geoengineering a whole earth-standard atmosphere, bioengineering an intelligent organism that can thrive in nonearth environments seems fairly sane. There's a social taboo against human genetic experimentation (hell, some people seem to struggle with vegetables) but that will eventually pass.
- clavalle 12y ago
  >bioengineering an intelligent organism Or just engineering some. Biological organisms seem overly tuned to their environment and complex ones need a supporting biological ecosystem to thrive (so far that we've seen). It may be more effective to get robotics to our level and expand intelligence into the galaxy 'synthetically'.
  - knodi123 12y ago
    once you've gotten to the tech level where you can artificially engineer a lifeform advanced enough to do something useful, but hardy enough to survive venus- by that point I'd say the distinction between robot and organism would be pretty blurry. ;-)
  - hereonbusiness 12y ago
    I don't get why more people don't think this way. Humans as they are today will probably never be able to thrive in space or even on other planets similar to earth, that is without a lot of genetic engineering or something of that sort. Create intelligent self replicating machines and a large part of the problems related to space travel just disappear. If creating an AGI is possible I would be surprised if the universe isn't already full of artificial life.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    The line between "biological" and "synthetic" is blurry and gets blurrier all the time. You can (and probably should) see biology as super advanced tech. One of the primary benefits is self-replication - ability for components to consume various resources and build copies of themselves. This is huge, and it enables everything from self-regenerating materials to in-situ upgrades. 3D printing is a joke compared to that. So while maybe Earth organisms are a bit over-tuned (on the macro scale) to planet's environment, we'd do good to treat life as superior nanotech we don't control yet, and not some kind of joke that can be replaced with steel and silicon (not that you said that; it's just a point of view I often see on the Internet).
- fredfoobar 12y ago
  That sounds intriguing as well, but I can't seem to wrap my mind around the kind of knowledge needed to "venusform" a human. I have to say that the idea of sending a swarm of robots and setting up a bunch of chemical reactions seems less daunting (due to my lack of imagination, I presume).
- dalke 12y ago
  Extreme thermophiles can reproduce up to 122C but we think DNA can't survive past ~150C or so, much less the 462C surface temperature of Venus. So step 1 in venusforming humans is to create a non-DNA-based life form. That might take a while.
  - stickfigure 12y ago
    That's if you wanted them to live on the surface, which seems to be a pretty tough problem to solve in any fashion. If we're contemplating living in the clouds, maybe a lifeform more birdlike or gasbag-jellyfish-like would make sense. Granted, I'm not sure I would want to show up to a blind date with a human/portuguese man-o-war hybrid.
    - pavel_lishin 12y ago
      > Granted, I'm not sure I would want to show up to a blind date with a human/portuguese man-o-war hybrid. You should read K.W. Jeter's "Farewell Horizontal"; he makes it seem a lot more palatable.
  - waps 12y ago
    Plus ATP, the cell-internal energy distribution mechanism that is a property of all life on earth destroys itself at 52 degrees celcius. That means no controlled energy actions can happen in cells above 52 degrees celcius. We'd have to redesign every enzyme, every single cell function.
    - zaroth 12y ago
      > We'd have to redesign every enzyme... Exactly what the Venusians thought before starting work on ATP!
    - dalke 12y ago
      "Extreme thermophiles can reproduce up to 122C" and 122 > 52. How should I resolve the apparent mismatch between your statement and observation?
- tjradcliffe 12y ago
  Frederick Pohl did this in "Man Plus", IIRC. Even without deliberate intervention, humans in space and on other worlds will evolve quite rapidly if interplanetary intercourse--as it were--ever breaks down.
- userulluipeste 12y ago
  "why aren't we talking about venusforming humans?" We're all humans here on Earth and yet it seems that that is not always enough to relate on a personal level and keep a human attitude over each other in order to prevent destructive escalations and the risk of wiping out each-other in mass. Just imagine the dirty politics that would arise around the (hypothetical) results of your idea.
- starwaver 12y ago
  Reminds me of the plot for Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, hopefully things like that doesn't happen though.
seanflyon 12y ago
With the order of magnitude of resources we are talking about (enough to colonize) yes it would be impossible to terraform either Mars or Venus. People are thinking about it, but not in the near-term. I think that the easiest way to terraform Venus involves scooping a gas giant for hydrogen to burn with Venus' CO2.

stickfigure 12y ago

Alternatively, why aren't we talking about venusforming humans? All space operas seem to start with the earth-standard human in a suit. Compared to geoengineering a whole earth-standard atmosphere, bioengineering an intelligent organism that can thrive in nonearth environments seems fairly sane. There's a social taboo against human genetic experimentation (hell, some people seem to struggle with vegetables) but that will eventually pass.

clavalle 12y ago
>bioengineering an intelligent organism Or just engineering some. Biological organisms seem overly tuned to their environment and complex ones need a supporting biological ecosystem to thrive (so far that we've seen). It may be more effective to get robotics to our level and expand intelligence into the galaxy 'synthetically'.
- knodi123 12y ago
  once you've gotten to the tech level where you can artificially engineer a lifeform advanced enough to do something useful, but hardy enough to survive venus- by that point I'd say the distinction between robot and organism would be pretty blurry. ;-)
- hereonbusiness 12y ago
  I don't get why more people don't think this way. Humans as they are today will probably never be able to thrive in space or even on other planets similar to earth, that is without a lot of genetic engineering or something of that sort. Create intelligent self replicating machines and a large part of the problems related to space travel just disappear. If creating an AGI is possible I would be surprised if the universe isn't already full of artificial life.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  The line between "biological" and "synthetic" is blurry and gets blurrier all the time. You can (and probably should) see biology as super advanced tech. One of the primary benefits is self-replication - ability for components to consume various resources and build copies of themselves. This is huge, and it enables everything from self-regenerating materials to in-situ upgrades. 3D printing is a joke compared to that. So while maybe Earth organisms are a bit over-tuned (on the macro scale) to planet's environment, we'd do good to treat life as superior nanotech we don't control yet, and not some kind of joke that can be replaced with steel and silicon (not that you said that; it's just a point of view I often see on the Internet).
fredfoobar 12y ago
That sounds intriguing as well, but I can't seem to wrap my mind around the kind of knowledge needed to "venusform" a human. I have to say that the idea of sending a swarm of robots and setting up a bunch of chemical reactions seems less daunting (due to my lack of imagination, I presume).
dalke 12y ago
Extreme thermophiles can reproduce up to 122C but we think DNA can't survive past ~150C or so, much less the 462C surface temperature of Venus. So step 1 in venusforming humans is to create a non-DNA-based life form. That might take a while.
- stickfigure 12y ago
  That's if you wanted them to live on the surface, which seems to be a pretty tough problem to solve in any fashion. If we're contemplating living in the clouds, maybe a lifeform more birdlike or gasbag-jellyfish-like would make sense. Granted, I'm not sure I would want to show up to a blind date with a human/portuguese man-o-war hybrid.
  - pavel_lishin 12y ago
    > Granted, I'm not sure I would want to show up to a blind date with a human/portuguese man-o-war hybrid. You should read K.W. Jeter's "Farewell Horizontal"; he makes it seem a lot more palatable.
- waps 12y ago
  Plus ATP, the cell-internal energy distribution mechanism that is a property of all life on earth destroys itself at 52 degrees celcius. That means no controlled energy actions can happen in cells above 52 degrees celcius. We'd have to redesign every enzyme, every single cell function.
  - zaroth 12y ago
    > We'd have to redesign every enzyme... Exactly what the Venusians thought before starting work on ATP!
  - dalke 12y ago
    "Extreme thermophiles can reproduce up to 122C" and 122 > 52. How should I resolve the apparent mismatch between your statement and observation?
tjradcliffe 12y ago
Frederick Pohl did this in "Man Plus", IIRC. Even without deliberate intervention, humans in space and on other worlds will evolve quite rapidly if interplanetary intercourse--as it were--ever breaks down.
userulluipeste 12y ago
"why aren't we talking about venusforming humans?" We're all humans here on Earth and yet it seems that that is not always enough to relate on a personal level and keep a human attitude over each other in order to prevent destructive escalations and the risk of wiping out each-other in mass. Just imagine the dirty politics that would arise around the (hypothetical) results of your idea.
starwaver 12y ago
Reminds me of the plot for Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, hopefully things like that doesn't happen though.

seanflyon 12y ago

With the order of magnitude of resources we are talking about (enough to colonize) yes it would be impossible to terraform either Mars or Venus. People are thinking about it, but not in the near-term. I think that the easiest way to terraform Venus involves scooping a gas giant for hydrogen to burn with Venus' CO2.