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When will we be able to send frozen embryos to other star systems to colonize habitable extrasolar planets?

Asked by mattbrowne (31732points) July 18th, 2009

My prediction is: around the year 2060

From Wikipedia: Embryo space colonization is a theoretical interstellar space colonization concept that involves sending a robotic mission to a habitable terrestrial planet transporting frozen early-stage human embryos or the technological or biological means to create human embryos. Modern medicine has made it possible to store frozen embryos in various low-development stages (up to several weeks in the development of the embryo).

Proposals of sleeper ships and generation ships require very large spacecrafts to transport humans, life support systems and other equipment or food as well as an even larger propulsion system for a long period in time. Even optimistic proposals would require such a major effort for such ships that the resources required on Earth would involve a large part of mankind devoted to the mission or would even exceed available resources. In contrast embryo space colonization would have feasible small dimensions in the range of today’s spacecraft, as the most important “cargo” would not need much space or would not weigh very much.

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

In my opinion the essential requirements include the ability to build an artificial womb, i.e. a machine that nurtures and grows a human embryo outside of a woman’s body, create androids based on advanced robotics that are capable of raising children and running on linguistic software that passes the Turing test, construct a spaceship for slow interstellar travel using strong and durable materials such as carbon nanotubes which will last for several 10,000 years, and select an Earth-like exoplanet for human colonization based on data retrieved by telescope systems such as ESA’s Darwin mission or NASA’s Terrestrial Planet Finder.

My predictions are related to Ray Kurzweil’s ‘Law of Accelerating Returns’ and humanity’s development towards intelligence explosion or a technological singularity. Please note that a superintelligence or singularity is not required for the construction of androids capable of child-rearing and piloting an interstellar spaceship. Strong AI or artificial general intelligence that matches human intelligence is sufficient. Similarly, the technical feasibility of cryonics involving the revival of hibernating humans is not required. My predictions do not include the actual construction of the starship around the year 2060, as the required budgets might not be allocated by politicians or private enterprises.

What is your opinion? Do you have a prediction? Could humanity achieve this earlier? Later? Never? If so, what would be the best alternative to achieve interstellar travel? Warp drives? Stargates? I would be interested in serious proposals based on real scientific findings and predictions.

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