
Could an astronaut’s corpse bring new life to another world? - benbreen
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2016/10/could-an-astronauts-corpse-bring-new-life-to-another-world
======
adekok
I can't find it now, but I recall an article which simulated interstellar
transit times for asteroids. The conclusion was that something like the
dinosaur killer asteroid could throw rocks into orbit. After 100M years, some
of those rocks could have reached other solar systems (i.e alpha centauri)

Given that life on Earth is ~4 billion years old, there's good reason to be
believe we've seeded rocks across a sphere ~100 or more light years across.

Whether those rocks reach another solar system is another question. Space is
_big_ , and even giant killer rocks are tiny.

~~~
api
One of my favorite admittedly speculative evolutionary informatics papers
agrees with you:

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/513781/moores-law-and-
the...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/513781/moores-law-and-the-origin-
of-life/)

~~~
theparanoid
It's probably true. The earliest rocks on earth show signs of life.

~~~
api
"Life originated on Earth" is probably the last remaining geocentrism.
Literally every other geocentrism has fallen. My prediction is that this one
will fall this century, probably with the discovery of simple microbial life
elsewhere in the solar system followed by the genetic confirmation of common
ancestry.

My favorite definition of life (courtesy of Dr. Christoph Adami and others in
evolutionary informatics) is that life is a "phase of matter in which Turing-
complete information processing dominates ordinary matter/energy dynamics." A
phase of matter means exactly what it sounds like-- solid, liquid gas, life--
though life would be more of a rare exotic phase like a superfluid or a Bose-
Einstein condensate or neutron star stuff (whatever that's called). I seem to
recall him or one of his colleagues playing with terms like "computonium" or
"Turium" (Turing-complete matter) for life.

Most phases of matter are found all over the place in the universe, but some
places in the universe are more hospitable for some than others. Stars are
great for plasma. Gas giants are full of gas. Cold icy outer planets are the
ideal abodes of solids. Life, like other phases, is probably ubiquitous but
Earth just happens to be a place that is peculiarly hospitable to it and a lot
of it is found there. That's likely because it's at the edge of many phase
boundaries (the water cycle, etc.) and it's been shown that Turing-
completeness occurs in systems close to phase boundaries:

[http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~turk/bio_sim/articles/langton_edge...](http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~turk/bio_sim/articles/langton_edge_of_chaos.pdf)

------
stevendhansen
Reminds me of a book I recently finished (Death's End by Cixin Liu). A major
plot element is sending a human brain to intercept an alien civilization that
is en-route to Earth with the hope that the aliens will resurrect the person
and use his knowledge establish a better dialog with humanity.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I recall reading another novel where one of the protagonists was resurrected
far, far in the future by a seemingly incomprehensible race. (Little spiders,
of sorts.) Unfortunately, due to unfamiliarity with humanity, they did a bad
job, and his body only lasted a few minutes before dying again.

I wish I could remember what the book was.

~~~
dmreedy
At the very least, "poorly reassembled by incomprehensible aliens" is a plot
element in the Star Trek TOS pilot. Granted, that character lasted more than a
few minutes. And costumes for incomprehensible aliens are expensive, so big
veiny heads will do.

~~~
ghayes
FYI, these is Star Trek's episode "The Managerie" [0], and was original the
pilot episode "The Cage" [1]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menagerie_(Star_Trek:_The_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menagerie_\(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series\))

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cage_(Star_Trek:_The_Origi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cage_\(Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series\))

------
eth0up
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia)

After many sessions, my past-life-regression therapist and I agreed that I was
once a very powerful and influential tardigrade on a glorious faraway planet
and that given the prognosis of humanity, I may be once again, but there's
more competition this time.

~~~
miles
Reading through some of your other comments, I'm convinced you were P.G.
Wodehouse last time around. Seriously though, do you write anywhere else
online? Great stuff.

~~~
eth0up
If you've any connections with academic (cognitive) psychological research
opportunities, e.g [1], I might know someone with uncanny 'relations' to the
aforementioned (and others).

1\. [http://dbem.ws/](http://dbem.ws/)

~~~
miles
You thrill me, sir! Sadly, my connections (such as they are) are far more
banal. Even the mere thought of moving among such scintillating company sends
me into gentle ecstasies!

What's this?! "One more coruscation, my dear Watson--yet another brain-wave!"
I am transported back to a fleeting email exchange with Charles Tart in 2010.
The very man you're after:

[http://www.paradigm-sys.com](http://www.paradigm-sys.com)

[http://www.dojopsi.com/contactform-
cttart.cfm](http://www.dojopsi.com/contactform-cttart.cfm)

If the contact form does not avail, his email address (from back then, at any
rate) appears to be a matter of public record:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=%22cttart@ucdavis.edu%22](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22cttart@ucdavis.edu%22)

~~~
eth0up
I appreciate the links and have archived them. Here's one for you:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_LeShan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_LeShan)

Of Dr LeShan's works, _The Medium, the Mystic, and the Physicist_ I highly
recommend, specifically the unabridged version. He worked a bit with Eileen J
Garrett[1], the tales of which are quite intriguing. This guy was (and still
is @96) 100% sincere. No quackery, no nonsense. I had the privilege of
acquaintance with his close friend, Dr Hauser, who I'll always fondly
remember. LeShan and Hauser met in the Army as young men and remained friends
for life. They were both psychologists, but their focuses diverged.

1
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eileen_J._Garrett](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eileen_J._Garrett)

------
pjmorris
I read a 'Last Man on Earth' short story in an SF anthology with, essentially,
this premise. At the end of the story, the exhausted person dies while sitting
on the edge of the sea... only to seed the next round of life from all of the
lifeforms and organic materials contained therein. Creepy, heady stuff for a
preteen. This was the 70's, so the idea has been around awhile.

~~~
fnbr
Do you remember the book? I'd be interested in reading that.

~~~
pjmorris
VerDeTerre came through, above. I read it in an anthology in the children's
section of the public library (another good reason for public libraries), but
the anthology title is long lost to /dev/null.

~~~
diggernet
My guess: Adventures in Time and Space

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_in_Time_and_Space](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_in_Time_and_Space)

My absolute favorite book growing up. Re-read it countless times. Highly
recommended.

~~~
pjmorris
Killer, killer anthology. The anthology I read was shorter, but that's
ignorable... everybody should go find a copy of 'Adventures in Time and
Space', it's a classic full of classics.

------
jakebasile
This is an interesting concept and has been explored in fiction before, most
recently (to my knowledge) in Prometheus. Not the best film, stunning
cinematography but lacking good writing, but had a similar premise.

------
svenhenrik
So where do I sign up to have my corpse sent to Mars after I die?

------
dear
...Prometheus

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(2012_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_\(2012_film\))

------
thom
Stephen Baxter's Titan (a fairly bleak novel but not totally outlandish given
current world events) ends with astronauts that long ago perished on Titan
being resurrected by the sentient race that eventually evolves there. In
preparation for the death of our star, they are preparing a rocket to send
genetic matter from our solar system to other parts of the galaxy, in some way
continuing our lineage.

------
squarefoot
Plants are faster to duplicate. Assuming the astronaut falls on a world with
air and water, if s/he ate some vegetable food containing seeds before dying,
they could grow on soil fed by his decaying body. The question then would be:
what happens when all nutrients from the body are depleted?

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Pica_soO
Even more interesting, given heat, radiation and chemical energy could this
corpse become a alive microcosm, with sped up evolution?

~~~
cbanek
Simpson's did it!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treehouse_of_Horror_VII#.22The...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treehouse_of_Horror_VII#.22The_Genesis_Tub.22)

Well, except for the space part. I honestly think it could happen. There's
also a lot of gut bacteria and other micro-organisms that are alive on their
own.

I'm wondering more if this spacesuit hit something like a comet, asteroid, or
other small body before hitting a planet. If a part of the living ecosystem
makes it to a secure nook or gets folded inside of the asteroid, it might
survive landing on a planet.

~~~
DiThi
> Well, except for the space part.

Well, Futurama did it again, this time in space.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfellas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfellas)

~~~
cbanek
Oh god you're so right. And that was a brilliant episode. Well played.

------
happy-go-lucky
Because of their resilience, tardigrades come to mind :)

------
serg_chernata
Has anything like this been tried before? Maybe not a corpse, but some other
organic matter?

~~~
te_platt
Maybe, but not on purpose. Nasa goes to great lengths to sterilize probes
going to Mars.
[http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/technology/is_planetary_protection....](http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/technology/is_planetary_protection.html)

~~~
pmoriarty
If Musk's Mars colonization plans come to fruition, all that trouble NASA went
to sterilize their Mars probes will be for nothing.

~~~
erispoe
Private parties still have to comply with planetary protection treaties. In
fact any colonization plan, or even commercial flight, to Mars (or anywhere
else in the solar system) from SpaceX needs to be approved by the US. It's not
a free for all out there, space is governed by treaties.

That's a big hurdle to colonization and commercial exploitation. Because it
means you have to show you're not contaminating alien life.

I would be really excited if we find traces of life on Mars but, at the same
time, it would probably delay commercial exploitation and colonization for
decades...

~~~
flukus
They'll have to comply, but they will probably cut corners.

~~~
erispoe
It depends what the US allows them to do, the same way you cannot legally "cut
corners" with FDA regulations.

Obviously you cannot sterilize astronauts. But they could be restrained to
landings outside of the special regions, which are the most promising for
astrobiology.

~~~
flukus
Assuming the commercial operator is in the US. China might cut some red tape.

~~~
erispoe
China is bound by international treaties the same way.

------
jejones3141
Isaac Asimov, "Founding Father".
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Father_(short_story)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Father_\(short_story\))

------
garaetjjte
[https://what-if.xkcd.com/134/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/134/)

------
andreapaiola
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

