Space Directive Un, Part Duex...no trois..no....

[Pat Mustard]

I don't miss the manned missions, but the public stays more invested in the space program if you include some manned missions.  I think manned missions to mars are an extravagance we don't need, however.

Long term it's a necessity. For species survival we need to get off the planet.

[ignoramus]

Yeah, but we left that one for the same reason!

Geez, don't you watch movies or something...?

[Anomalocaris]

I don't miss the manned missions, but the public stays more invested in the space program if you include some manned missions.  I think manned missions to mars are an extravagance we don't need, however.

Long term it's a necessity. For species survival we need to get off the planet.

No.

For species survival our genes need to get off the planet. We don’t.

[Autumnlicious]

That's a retarded statement. "Our genes"?

Tell me, what is an expression of our genes other than HeLa and humans?

Do you have a magic race of pint sized hobbits to send to mars?

Maybe a Chia pet that'll grow into a Trump voter?

There are no human genes without humanity. There is no long term, self-sustaining human colony without a minimum of a hundred people (and careful family planning).

We have a Bus-Planet factor of one - all it takes is one planet to knock us all out for good. And some of us have the practical ability to render large swathes of this planet uninhabitable.

[Edwardo Piet]

I guess he's just talking about the selfish gene. And how modern humans aren't necessarily driven to survive and reproduce but our genes are.

I often wish I wouldn't wake up tomorrow... so survival is "meh" to me . . . and I'm too busy masturbating to reproduce . . . so I'm very much defying my genes.

[Anomalocaris]

That's a retarded statement. "Our genes"?

Tell me, what is an expression of our genes other than HeLa and humans?

Do you have a magic race of pint sized hobbits to send to mars?

Maybe a Chia pet that'll grow into a Trump voter?

There are no human genes without humanity. There is no long term, self-sustaining human colony without a minimum of a hundred people (and careful family planning).

We have a Bus-Planet factor of one - all it takes is one planet to knock us all out for good. And some of us have the practical ability to render large swathes of this planet uninhabitable.

Really?   Carrying trillions of copies of human genes in molecular form inside spectacularly delicate and temperamental containers decided not designed to survive anything close to hazards of space is the only way you can think of to cause those genes to be expressed on a different planet? You can see no potential for how technology can affect gene propagation other than by simply taking the same mechanism of propagation evolved over 3 billion years to a different location?

I can not only think of others but think those other are far more practical, economic for space travel and are technically achievable in the relatively near future of say 100 years.

In the last 70 years, there has effectively been no breakthrough in capabilities afforded by energy access, space access and propulsion science and technologies.  There is only slow, incremental improvement in capability afforded by plodding refinements in existing technology.  Furthermore There appear to be no real prospect of any quantum breakthrough in those science and capabilities on the horizon, only further slow plodding progress yielding limited increases in capabilities over long periods.   So For the foreseeable future, sending even modest payload into space will consume enormous energy and therefore cost an enormous amount, and to get to the destination will take a long, long time.

On the other hand, during the same 70years, the growth the capabilities afforded by biological, medical and genetic science and technologies has vastly outstripped the growth in the capabilities of space transportation technologies.   It is probably not very unlikely that within 100 years, we will be able to, starting from a digitized record of a single human’s genome, and a basic set of raw mineral and organic molecules, be able to fabricate all the proteins and mineralized constituents in the human body, and then 3-D print a live human out of those manufactured constituents.

We are already on the verge of 3D printing up complete functioning human organs from cells, we just need to expand that ability to print up cells from protein molecules.

What is more, our ability to map the human brain in ever greater detail at least affords the prospect that within a century or so, we can decode the molecular and neurological mechanism of human memory and cognition so well, that as we 3D print a human being from his constimutuent atoms, we can take care to print into that person all the desired memories, cognitive capabilities and skills.  

So, if it is our goal to prevent extinction by diversifying our gene pool to as many locations across interstellar space as possible, what would make more sense in the foreseeable future given our wizardry with biology is likely to far outstrip out powers to move large masses at high speed?

Build a few enormous colonization ships large enough to carry viable breeding populations, including all the supplies and consumables required to keep them alive during the voyage and for long enough after their arrival to enable them to establish themselves,

Or larger number of much Smaller colonization ships each just big enough to carry a digital database of a viable human gene pool, a self replicating set of equipment to extract and process raw material into desired molecules, and a 3 D printer that can convert the molecules into live humans using the stored geneme data?

So this is what I mean colonizing space to avoid the extinction of our specie does not need to involve even a single live human being actually leaving our planet.  It doesn’t even require any of our actual genes themselves leave the planet.

All it requires complete information about our genes leave the planet, with the equipment to enable them to be expressed in new, fabricated humans manufactured in situ at a new location through the capabilities of fabrication technology.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I think it's about fetching the extraterrestrial artifacts on the dark side of the moon.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

So who's going to pay for it?  It sure won't be be billionaires or the corporations who are getting the big tax cuts.  It sure won't be Congress which can't even pass a normal budget.   China will get to the moon before the US will.

Impossibility as the US has already been there, 48 years ago.

ReallY?

[dyresand]

I change my stance on this they are cutting education but if the public interest in space is large enough they can go out and do the research themselves.

[Minimalist]

Impossibility as the US has already been there, 48 years ago.

ReallY?

Yeah.... but like the Vikings landing in Canada we did little more than leave a few artifacts around.  You can bet the Chinese will be building factories or something.