Talk:Embryo space colonization

Untitled
interesting article, but valuable data is missing. who proposed these programs? how serious is research on them? is this merely a theory, or is there research being done as well? etc...

Bacteria?
so if you transported frozen embryos or you'd make them on the planet itself via biotechnological processes, it would still be impossible for these children to survive. (other than you need parents to survive, as in physical love)

where is the bacteria supposed to come from that populate our body? that we need to digest etc? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.18.112.9 (talk) 22:02, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

''Possibly the most extreme version of this concept involves the goal of exclusively male planetary colonies. In this case only male embryos are transported along with a large reserve of ovum as well as adding the ideas of robots which would perform gender selection within the artificial wombs. Why exclusively male''? Why not exclusively female? Exclusively female, with a large number of sperm (especially if said sperm had a significant majority of X-chromosome-bearing sperm) would allow for rapid initial growth, since all of the population in the first generation would be potential child-bearers, rather than only half. Nik42 02:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Might be?
There's a lot of speculation that sounds like original research in this article. I'm tempted to prod it. -- User:Malber (talk • contribs) 17:20, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It just survived a delete vote. Also I took much of it out for vagueness.--T. Anthony 13:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert has a short story with ESC as a part of the story. I'll come back to this later. D e lta Tango | Talk 03:02, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Ken Catran's Deepwater Black series is based around a crew of human clones rebuilding the Earth with huge gene banks (one for humans, one for all the plants and animals) which should probably be included in the examples. There is a possibility that there are more than just one gene bank on each of the two ships, but I haven't finished reading the last few chapters, so I don't want to say it until I can confirm it. - NemFX 03:15, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Ethical dilemma?
If this has actually been discussed seriously in academic and scientific circles then surely there has also been discussion of the inherent ethical issues involved with this sort of thing. Doing this would essentially mean that you were sending people to live on their own in a hostile alien environment without their consent. Obviously, it would be impossible for the "colonists" to volunteer for the trip as they would not yet have been born so you are essentially forcing this upon them. If anyone knows of any formal information about this issue we should add it here. --Hexadecimal82 23:01, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


 * how is this different from normal childbirth? Couldn't I say that my parents sentenced me to live in a particular country - without my consent - because I hadn't been born and thus couldn't give my consent?  Nobody volunteers to be born.  I see what you're getting at, but I don't think it's quite that big of an ethical issue.


 * Imagine someone created from sperm donated to a sperm bank. He might say, "wait a minute, I don't *want* to be made from sperm-bank sperm.  I don't *want* to be raised by these parents.  I wanted the sperm donor to be my father and the egg donor to be my mother and for them to be married and raise me that way."  I mean, it's nice that he wants that, but that isn't an option.  If not for the sperm bank, that sperm would have been deposited into a kleenex and thrown in the trash.  His two options are, a: exist the way he exists.  b: not exist at all.


 * I think the same is true of seedship children. It's an interesting discussion.Christopher.secord 18:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Changed recreate to procreate for semantic reasons. The intial artifical caretakers / founders would recreate human life, but a population of human beings would procreate life.


 * etcical dilemmas are not typically discussed by technology specialists that would be inwolved into solving the "how to" question. ethics is a field that philosophers are dealing with (and perhaps religious leaders) who arent very likely to get involved by a government that would fund such a (space colonization) research. on the other hand there is a dilemma involved in space colonization that might be worried over by a gov providing the funding for it: this is "how to maintain control over the colony" (and how to make the whole project pay back its worth at least in the long run). 176.63.176.112 (talk) 01:27, 25 July 2016 (UTC).

Difficulties in implementing the concept
The language in this section needs some cleaning up: "Some liberal college students believe it's arrogant for humans to assume that intelligent life is valuable and worth preserving through the colonization of space."

I propose the above be generalized, unless the author can cite a specific source indicating that liberal college students hold this view frequently enough to be remarkable. I also suggest that reference be made to the wikipedia article on Anthropocentrism for context. 74.93.91.101 (talk) 20:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Combination of embryo-splitting and embryo space colonization
One critical question always remains: will the frozen human embryos actually make it? How will they grow up. What if we observed how their identical twins are doing on Earth. I wrote a science fiction novel that looks into those questions.

I don't want to add the book to the actual article (as this is rightly considered bad style and unwanted self-promotion). I'd just like to share my ideas with this small community interested in embryo space colonization.

Here's the press release of my book:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New science fiction writer Matt Browne explores the ramifications of identical twins born years apart

THE FUTURE HAPPENS TWICE

Book 1 in the trilogy: THE PERENNIAL PROJECT Paperback, 732 pages ISBN: 978-1844018307 Date: June 14, 2007 Published by Athena Press, London

For decades scientists have dreamed of sending deep-frozen humans on interstellar missions. But until this dream comes true, they must settle for a much simpler technique available: the freezing of human embryos. However, long distance space travel of this nature poses other challenges, none more so than the management of artificial pregnancies and how to raise the children produced.

One viable solution comes in the form of advanced biotechnology and highly sophisticated androids, and a large scale project has been implemented to explore these options. To prove that it can really work, the project's scientists go a step further. Somewhere in the Nevada desert and well hidden underground, they conduct an eighteen-year-long experiment using a young starship crew unaware of their true environment. Surrounded by complex simulations, the crew believes they are approaching a distant star system, one that appears to host a planet suitable for human colonization. What they also don't know is the fact that their embryos had been split prior to the implantation in the womb devices.

The scientists' bold plan is to send the twin embryos on the real mission, pioneering the frontier of space. From both identical genes and an identical environment inside the starship, they arrive at the assumption that the future is a mere repetition of the present events. And indeed, about 42,000 years later the twins grow up with the very same android parents.

But then things start to drift away from the original plan. The real starship crew now faces a constant battle for survival. Only their fortitude and strong determination to land on the extrasolar planet averts a disaster. The reward is the new exotic world that awaits them, full of overwhelming potential.

Matt Browne's beautifully worked space epic explores the bounds of human hope and invention and plumbs the depths of human duplicity. Tender relationships between the budding astronauts are pitched against the disillusion they feel when an embattled President confronts them with their true origins and purpose, only to reveal the real culprit in the entire project - something closer to all of us today.

The author's fascination with the fields of bioengineering and information technology sustains the reader's interest all the way in this futuristic roller-coaster ride. And he asks a terrifying question. Setting aside man's inhumanity to man, what if Nature herself turns against us?

This gripping novel of epic proportions skillfully mixes elements of drama, medical thriller and science fiction. As the story unfolds, Matt Browne takes his readers on a breathtaking journey through vast stretches of time and space.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Matt Browne is a computer scientist with an M.S. degree from the University of Kansas. He works for a large, multinational company in the information technology division. He lives near Frankfurt, Germany, is married and has two twin children. In 1996 Matt Browne began his part-time writing career. Currently he is underway completing "Human Destiny", the second novel of the "Future Happens Twice" trilogy.

Website www.meet-matt-browne.com

Amazon link The Future Happens Twice —Preceding unsigned comment added by Meetmattbrowne (talk • contribs) 16:04, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

A C Clarke
Clarke already wrote about this concept. I'll hit the used book stores tomorrow and try to find the books. basically: Earth is dying, all research goes to saving humanity and embryos are launched into space. Eventually the last generations of humans on earth discover near lightspeed engines, gather everything they can of civilization and culture and take off into space to find the colonies and take culture to them. I forgot how the series ended... . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.113.49.126 (talk) 04:35, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Larry Niven
The latest Niven trilogy Juggler of Worlds, Fleet of Worlds, destroyer of Worlds, colony ships carried a crew of 4 with a huge cargo bay full of earthlife embryos of all kinds, resulting in the puppeters gaining a slave race of "domesticated humans" they try to keep secret from the "wild humans" who are the rest of humanity as they appear in Niven's Known Space. The experiments performed on the human embryos are equivalent to Nazi experiments. The closest analogy is the Star trek episodes: The Cage and the Menagerie and Gem where the aliens experiment on humans and Gem's race for fun and profit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.113.49.126 (talk) 04:40, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

robot building robots
difficulties of implementing the concept section - robotics subsection: "Though such technology does not yet exist, there are strong economic incentives to develop it, which are unrelated to space colonization." - i would not go as far as to say this sentence needs a source reference but, i think the article (and the reader as well) would benefit from some example or reference to what is going on in "this field" and why there are strong economic incentives (unrelated to space colonization) to develop robots building further robots from scratch, using found raw materials. i am not trying to be overly inquisitive, but am really curious. 176.63.176.112 (talk) 01:11, 25 July 2016 (UTC).