Deep space: Are we smart enough to beat the physics?
- Thread starter Dryson
- Start date
I think it was Arthur C. Clark who said....
People tend to over estimate technological change over the short run....
(Resulting in what amounts to hype).
And under estimate technological change over the long run....because of unexpected break throughs.
People tend to over estimate technological change over the short run....
(Resulting in what amounts to hype).
And under estimate technological change over the long run....because of unexpected break throughs.
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While I find the topic of Transhumanism interesting, I suspect that it describes the far future, rather than the near future.
There has been some speculation by scientists regarding technological revolutions in the future. I take these speculations seriously, but until such reach at least a prototype level, I can't expect to see revolutionary technology within the next few decades.
If these speculations should someday come to pass...it may well be that we exist at a primitive level. Right, we may be a bunch of primitives.
What might be achieved during the remainder of my life? (I'm almost 60). Perhaps a bit of tweaking of human biology.
There has been some speculation by scientists regarding technological revolutions in the future. I take these speculations seriously, but until such reach at least a prototype level, I can't expect to see revolutionary technology within the next few decades.
If these speculations should someday come to pass...it may well be that we exist at a primitive level. Right, we may be a bunch of primitives.
What might be achieved during the remainder of my life? (I'm almost 60). Perhaps a bit of tweaking of human biology.
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We certainly seem to need some tweaking of human psychology.
Actually spores that were able to survive space had higher levels of protein with UV radiation resistance. The same organisms when revived on Earth, also showed an increased resistance to UV radiation.
http://www.natureworldnews.com/arti...a-survive-space-travel-iss-research-shows.htm
What this means for humans is that because life came to Earth in the form of spores, that a mechanism in the human mitochondria would be present that would effectively "turn on" the switch that would increase UV radiation resistance.
What is even more interesting is the contention that first contact with an alien life would in the form of machines.
I would have to think that first contact with an alien life would in the form of machine built around allowing spores to travel through space that as the spore travel and the protein became more UV resistant that the spores DNA coding would be instructed by the alien life to evolve to eventually operate the machine that it was contained within.
http://www.natureworldnews.com/arti...a-survive-space-travel-iss-research-shows.htm
What this means for humans is that because life came to Earth in the form of spores, that a mechanism in the human mitochondria would be present that would effectively "turn on" the switch that would increase UV radiation resistance.
What is even more interesting is the contention that first contact with an alien life would in the form of machines.
I would have to think that first contact with an alien life would in the form of machine built around allowing spores to travel through space that as the spore travel and the protein became more UV resistant that the spores DNA coding would be instructed by the alien life to evolve to eventually operate the machine that it was contained within.
unproven
Doubly so.
I'm not sure where @Dryson is deriving his musing about mitochondria providing UV resistance. Nearly all eukaryotic cells contain mitochondria, which probably originated as endosymbiont purple non-sulfur bacteria back in evolutionary history.
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bioslabs/studies/mitochondria/mitorigin.html
Eukaryotes mainly use their mitochondria to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP) as a source of chemical energy. Mitochondria have nothing to do with conferring UV resistance as far as I'm aware but that might just be ignorance on my part -- I'm no biochemist.
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bioslabs/studies/mitochondria/mitorigin.html
Eukaryotes mainly use their mitochondria to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP) as a source of chemical energy. Mitochondria have nothing to do with conferring UV resistance as far as I'm aware but that might just be ignorance on my part -- I'm no biochemist.
Are you trolling us?
This ass pulling crap seems to be coming from experiments mentioned in this paper. The conclusions he's making are not what's there, though. Some rockdwelling organisms can endure exposure to space but the duration is very limited and their is nothing conclusive to indicate they could survive exposure for the time it takes to travel between planets.
http://dspace.unitus.it/bitstream/2067/2572/1/gscalzi_tesid.pdf
http://dspace.unitus.it/bitstream/2067/2572/1/gscalzi_tesid.pdf
Yeah, last time I checked, human bodies are a lot more complex than spores and water bears.
The more complicated the body, the more things can go wrong.
The more complicated the body, the more things can go wrong.
That's also one of the reasons that I never cared for concepts like the grey goo or utility fog.
The smaller something is, and the simpler something is--the more sturdy. Ants can survive greater falls than people.
Radiodurans is very tough--also very simple. A newly fertilized egg cell (a fine example of nature's small intricacies) can become an aerospace engineer in a few decades. Put it in the dirt--outside the womb where it has to be babied into existence at both micro and macroscales--and it dies...
Same with do-everything nanites. At small scales a droplet of water is an ocean of molasses.
Brownian motion makes nano-self assembly akin to having Norm Abram and Bob Vila build a two storey brownstone on Omaha Beach while getting shelled by 88's
Static cling almost feels like neutron star gravity and holds you fast or flings you away. A dust mote is an asteroid--a dust mite is Godzilla--and heat is death.
But nano pixie dust had an appeal. We only had Delta II class rockets--and it seemed easier to fund nano-tech than fund HLLVs to put front-end loaders on the Moon.
This is where something smaller isn't better. It is better to make bigger rockets with large payloads.
The smaller something is, and the simpler something is--the more sturdy. Ants can survive greater falls than people.
Radiodurans is very tough--also very simple. A newly fertilized egg cell (a fine example of nature's small intricacies) can become an aerospace engineer in a few decades. Put it in the dirt--outside the womb where it has to be babied into existence at both micro and macroscales--and it dies...
Same with do-everything nanites. At small scales a droplet of water is an ocean of molasses.
Brownian motion makes nano-self assembly akin to having Norm Abram and Bob Vila build a two storey brownstone on Omaha Beach while getting shelled by 88's
Static cling almost feels like neutron star gravity and holds you fast or flings you away. A dust mote is an asteroid--a dust mite is Godzilla--and heat is death.
But nano pixie dust had an appeal. We only had Delta II class rockets--and it seemed easier to fund nano-tech than fund HLLVs to put front-end loaders on the Moon.
This is where something smaller isn't better. It is better to make bigger rockets with large payloads.
That's what she said.
