Evacuate Earth

[Drunken Hobo]

Genetically engineering of the four-arms-kind is really complicated and requires significantly more than the current research gives. It would involve changes to how fetusses grow, how your brain works, and such things. The problem is not that this yould be impossible per se, but to get well-working usable new limbs would require lots of tests, some of them maybe incompatible with (current) ethics.

A self-sustaining colony of 250,000 people in space is also a bit beyond our current technology, so I think some degree of suspension of disbelief is permissible.

I don't think longer toes would be too far out of reach with current technology, although as you said, there is the ethical problem. Then again, 250,000 people have escaped Earth leaving 7 billion to die horribly, so I doubt they would share our current ethical values.

[3_bit]

Comedic solutions:

1. Send our best actors (William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, etc.) from space shows in a modified Soyuz towards our impending doom-inducer, leading all of mankind's nuclear explosives capable of making the journey, on a mission to blow the sun up/detonate the weapons to attempt to push the sun away.

2. Split the Earth in two with surgical nuclear detonations in the deep mantle, leaving one half to be destroyed.

3. Become a cargo hauler on the ship and sneak into a container

Actual solution that nobody will really complain about: take lots of human DNA and send nuclear-powered probes on long journeys to habitable planets far, far away. These devices will then use chemicals to synthesize human DNA (stored in memory banks) then inject it into some cells that were in cryogenic storage, to grow humans the ship would raise, and train in survival and life skills, as well as human history and culture. The probe would be massive, perhaps 30 feet in radius and 100 feet long, to store all this complex equipment and resources, as well as machines the soon-to-be colonists will use. It would also have automated child-raising equipment and videos, as well as a massive database of humanity's knowledge.

Surely these probes would be cheaper than sending what, billions of tons into space? These ships I am suggesting would be mass-produced, taking a variety of human DNA samples, to be stored in electronic form. It is also possible that, instead of synthesizing the DNA, that single-celled human zygotes be produced and cryogenically frozen. For those of you who don't know, cryogenic freezing is a process that involves replacing your blood with cryogenic fluids, then freezing you, the cryogenic fluids not containing water, as to prevent your cells from bursting when frozen. This process has not been tested on humans, but a dog was successfully frozen, then brought back to life, undamaged, some time ago.

Anyhow, hundreds or perhaps thousands of these probes would be sent out to various planets, each containing information stating where the others are headed, and what fate befell their home planet. Perhaps this technique should be used for colonizing other worlds today, as all the technology needed is present.

[ZetaX]

This process [cryogenic freezing] has not been tested on humans, but a dog was successfully frozen, then brought back to life, undamaged, some time ago.

Are you talking about CF of a zygote or an actual grown dog here¿ The letter sounds unplausible to meand I would at least want to see a source.

Also, replacing your blood with whatever else will not solve the problem of your cells (especially the brain) bursting as they contain lots of water as well.

[Bacterius]

Yeah, I watched that a few months ago. It was worth watching, I suppose, but I could not get over the sheer implausibility of the research center on earth not being instantly nuked by people opposed to the project/selection method/religious convinction/whatever. I mean, there was a single event where a dude got blown up trying to sabotage the project, but in reality, with the media coverage depicted by the clip, it looks like they'd be faced with a full-on civil war, unending riots, constant terrorism, and would likely to have to work underground in near total secrecy to get anything done (and, incidentally, stay alive).

[kiwiak]

I agree with Ralathon. Once a civilisation has the ability to make self-supporting facilities in space there's no need to venture down onto planets except for exploration. That level of technology is probably centuries or millennia beyond where we are now, but that's not a big problem IMO. Most of the real extinction level threats are unlikely to get us in that timeframe.

And i think that living in space colonies is just something people woudl do if they did not had another choice.

Once they woudl found some habitable planet they woudl go down, becouse its human nature to preffer to live in vast open species with blue sky, not inside some enclosed cans.

Humanity woudl to change itself, maybe into some race of cyborgs - to really embrace concept of living in space. And cyborgisation woudl probably partially make life support system obsolete.

And another thing, woudlnt living on surface of planet (granted that its earth like type, so no need for life support) just cheaper? You dont need to create habitates protected from vacuum radiation, with artificial gravity, just chop some trees, make wooden cabin, plan some seeds to gather crops, and here you have basics for survival for human family.

Althought we coudl start arguing if we just have bodies from our solar system at hand, like titan or mars, woudl it be logical to try to live on surface or stay in space habitates. For example mars already has its own gravity, less extreme temperatures than in void of space and you only need to dig few meters underground to avoid radiation... you also have soil to plant crops at hand. From the other hand, 1/3 gravity oudl be fatal for humans in long term, or just to fetus devlopment, well its still unknown. And in space you can have any gravity you want... If centirfugal rings will prove to be safe and absent of any side effects with is unknown too.

By the way, someone mentioned that religion, political beliefs shoudl not be something taken on account in selection process... i disagree. Both religion and politics indicate that person have some specific mindset... and we dont want some of mindsets on board of our ships. For example some sects that commit mass suicides, or other like amishes that rejest technology progress as satans work.

Edited January 16, 2014 by kiwiak

[ZetaX]

its human nature to preffer to live in vast open species with blue sky, not inside some enclosed cans.

Any evidence for that please... A simple "I can't imagine living without that blue sky" is not even close to sufficient.

[Seret]

Humanity woudl to change itself, maybe into some race of cyborgs - to really embrace concept of living in space. And cyborgisation woudl probably partially make life support system obsolete.

And another thing, woudlnt living on surface of planet (granted that its earth like type, so no need for life support) just cheaper? You dont need to create habitates protected from vacuum radiation, with artificial gravity, just chop some trees, make wooden cabin, plan some seeds to gather crops, and here you have basics for survival for human family.

We'd need to provide habitats to live on an exoplanet, too. The chances of us finding a planet that has exactly the same gravity, radiation, temperature, atmospheric pressure and mix of gases as Earth is incredibly remote. Even then the local flora and fauna could be incompatible, inedible, toxic, or pathogenic to us. Humans require a very narrow range of conditions, even if things were only a few percent out we'd be screwed. Humans evolved to exactly suit the conditions here on Earth, in order to live on an exoplanet that was even somewhat like Earth we'd still need to either modify ourselves to suit the environment, modify the environment, or live in artificial habitats.

Living on an exoplanet wouldn't be easy, and you'd be lugging all the equipment and support you'd require down into a gravity well. That's not cheap. If we had the technology to create self-sufficient habitats (which may or may not involve modifying ourselves, as you say) then it might simply be easier to leave them in space instead of sending them down to the surface.

Personally I suspect Earth will be the only planet that ever supports a substantial permanent population of unmodified humans. Modified humans on exoplanets is a possibility, as is modified or unmodified humans in space habitats.

[ZetaX]

You don't need the same gravity (at least 10% difference should be fine, maybe even 30%), atm. pressure (from my memory you can go down to 80% of earth's and up by a lot) or gas composition (as long as the oxygen and CO_2 partial pressures are about earth's and there are no other toxic gases, you should be fine) for humans to be able to live there. And we already have temperature differences by more than 50K in the areas humans normally live in. And on radiation, you don't want the same, but ideally none.

Edited January 16, 2014 by ZetaX

[kiwiak]

You don't need the same gravity (at least 10% difference should be fine, maybe even 30%), atm. pressure (from my memory you can go down to 80% of earth's and up by a lot) or gas composition (as long as the oxygen and CO_2 partial pressures are about earth's and there are no other toxic gases, you should be fine) for humans to be able to live there. And we already have temperature differences by more than 50K in the areas humans normally live in.

You are just assuming this. There are no data on long time (2 years are not long time and it was 0 g, not low g) exposure of low g effects for human body, and whats more important if fetus development in these conditions.

As for humans preffering living under open sky... wel people seems to start devloping mental problems after long terms of being enclsed inside spall spces.. Maybe if children livd inside these cans from birdth, woudl be used to it and accept it as natural?

But some things are imprinted in human nature, and i belive (dont have any solid evidence) that even after spending entire life in space, humans woudl just feel some urge to "go down" once given oppurtinity.

[ZetaX]

0.9g is not low g. From a physical point of view, it's not very plausible that such a change should have much effect. The other data are from my mind, but I looked those up some months ago for another discussion, but you can check for yourself if you wish.

Why should such a thing be imprinted into humans¿ I don't see any evolutionary effect of the species strifing for living below a blue sky. They would go down, yes, but out of interest and for science and all that.

[Seret]

You don't need the same gravity (at least 10% difference should be fine, maybe even 30%)

10% probably would be fine, that's still quite a narrow band.

atm. pressure (from my memory you can go down to 80% of earth's and up by a lot)

I'll give you this, but I suspect there's not a lot of data on really long-term effects of low or high pressure environments.

or gas composition (as long as the oxygen and CO_2 partial pressures are about earth's and there are no other toxic gases, you should be fine)

This one though, no, you do need it to be absolutely bang on. You'd get unhappy quickly if your atmosphere had 0.1% chlorine, or 3% CO2. The acceptable range is very narrow, and for a planet to have an atmospheric gas composition identical to Earth it realistically has to have the exact same chemical composition, in the same proportions, and the exact same biological and non-biological processes going on. To me, that strains credibility beyond breaking point. I'll quite happily agree that there could be a planet out there somewhere (maybe even in our galaxy) but the chances of us ever finding one amongst all the other millions and billions of exoplanets seems pretty low.

we already have temperature differences by more than 50K in the areas humans normally live in.

Sure, but it's got to be the right 50 degrees.

And on radiation, you don't want the same, but ideally none.

Sure, that'd be grand.

[kiwiak]

for a planet to have an atmospheric gas composition identical to Earth it realistically has to have the exact same chemical composition, in the same proportions, and the exact same biological and non-biological processes going on.

I think having 50% of oxygen and 50% of nitrogen woudlnt be so harmfull.. correct me if im wrong.

[Stargate525]

I think having 50% of oxygen and 50% of nitrogen woudlnt be so harmfull.. correct me if im wrong.

The only thing we humans care about as far as breathing is oxygen, and the gasses that are poisonous/corrosive. Assuming that the pressure isn't high enough to induce oxygen toxicity, a 50% oxygen atmosphere... would make you high. Eventually, you'd get used to it.

But the human body doesn't care whether the bulk gas is nitrogen, argon, helium... As long as it isn't something nasty like sulphor dioxide or chlorine gas, we'll be fine.

[Ralathon]

I think having 50% of oxygen and 50% of nitrogen woudlnt be so harmfull.. correct me if im wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity

If that 50/50 atmosphere has the same pressure as earth you're going to have a bad day.

[ZetaX]

This one though, no, you do need it to be absolutely bang on. You'd get unhappy quickly if your atmosphere had 0.1% chlorine, or 3% CO2. The acceptable range is very narrow, and for a planet to have an atmospheric gas composition identical to Earth it realistically has to have the exact same chemical composition, in the same proportions, and the exact same biological and non-biological processes going on. To me, that strains credibility beyond breaking point. I'll quite happily agree that there could be a planet out there somewhere (maybe even in our galaxy) but the chances of us ever finding one amongst all the other millions and billions of exoplanets seems pretty low.

Please read my post on that again: I said that the partial pressures would need to be about right; it is simply impossible to have 3% CO_2 at our usual partial pressure of 0.0004 (or 0.00025) atmospheres while still having the one of oxygen at 0.21 atmospheres (as this would amount to the absurdity of 1575% oxygen ;-) ).

If your atmosphere contains oxygen, a lot of the toxic gases are unlikely to occure in relevant amounts due to oxygen's ability to react with lots of them. But there might be some processes that create such things by the local life, yes; I can't say much on this due to lack of any serious xenobiological knowledge.

[Javster]

"No longer available due to a copyright claim"

[Pawelk198604]

"No longer available due to a copyright claim"

I updated link:-)

[kmMango]

Not to be fanciful, but do we even need bodies or a planet? Within 50 years, we will have the computing power to be able to model the human brain in real time at the molecular level. This century, we could very well see humans achieve immortality. A ship could be built storing human minds, millions of them, carrying them beyond the solar system. Life support would be unnecessary.

Edited June 24, 2014 by kmMango
Unclear statements.

[rtxoff]

Not to be fanciful, but do we even need bodies or a planet? Within 50 years, we will be able to model the human brain in real time at the molecular level. This century, we could very well see humans achieve immortality. A ship could be built storing human minds, millions of them, carrying them beyond the solar system. Life support would be unnecessary.

I don't think anything of this will happen so soon. If you look what sluggish progress humanity made in the last 50 years none of this will happen that fast.

[kmMango]

I agree, I am saying if we worked at it we could have it in 50 years. If Moore's Law holds out, by then we will have the computing power to pull it off.

[notfruit]

Would humanity still live on if we sent genetically modified superhumans on this ark?

Would they still be considered human?

[TheBigCon4800]

Plot twist! Everybody grab a spacesuit, and grab on to the soyuz!

[78stonewobble]

The selection process is based on genetic profiling so only healthiest people ( so probably no apsies, adhd, neurotic or bi-polar ) of all races would go. The question is you are not selected, does you would try every effort to sabotage project.

I have no problem with the profiling in that specific scenario and it would probably be a bit more than just mental diseases. There are some pretty bad genes around for heart disease and cancer. Probably others too.. Getting "rid" of those genes... I think it would only save people from grief in the long term.

A little more close to home (much so in my own case). I don't believe in "forced" genetic profiling for offspring, but... If I was deciding upon having kids, I'd take my genes into consideration and the wellbeing of my hypothetical child, outweighs my selfish need to have children. Around here there has been some pretty brazen examples of people really not caring about their kids, they just want them, no matter the cost, or effect on the kids. That I really don't like.

Offcourse I wouldn't sabotage a project like that. Even if I was screwed up enough to want to be known as the man who killed off humanity, noone would remember it, if I succeeded. Counter productive *lol*

[Comrade Jenkens]

I've always been a supporter of scientifically sound genetic profiling.

What do you mean by this?

[Seret]

Would humanity still live on if we sent genetically modified superhumans on this ark?

Would they still be considered human?

Sure, the genome isn't a static thing. There's a lot of natural variation within the population anyway. A person with a curated genome would simply be drawing the best available genes from that pool. That can happen completely naturally given enough rolls of the dice.

Eventually these modified humans might be divergent enough from the normal population that you'd consider them a seperate species, but there's no hard line on that. Just look at how plastic the dog genome is, we're happy to say that chihuahuas and great danes are both dogs, after all.