
Why Hacking DNA Is the Secret of Deep-Space Travel - jonbaer
http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a18496/why-synthetic-lifeforms-are-the-secret-of-deep-space-travel/
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SCAQTony
The way we are talking about space travel is probably the same way the people
of Florence, Italy spoke of Da Vinci flying machines, submarine and his
armored "car."

When you consider the dangers of just getting to Mars and how long that
project will take, I suspect we are a century or two away.

[http://www.da-vinci-inventions.com/armoured-car.aspx](http://www.da-vinci-
inventions.com/armoured-car.aspx)

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bootload
_" When you consider the dangers of just getting to Mars and how long that
project will take, I suspect we are a century or two away."_ Compare how
dangerous it was to set man on the Moon in the 60s to getting to Mars. Its
just risk. You can manage risk. Getting there isn't the real problem. Staying
alive is.

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SCAQTony
The Moon shot was an awesome feat. If we threw our Iraq/Syria/Afghanistan
budget perhaps we could overcome the logistical challenges, such as the
massive amount of weight we would be sending. The food bulk, return fuel,
zero-g health effects, cosmic ray brain damage and timing the return voyage.

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zipwitch
I'm reminded of author Peter Watts' _Blindsight_ where travel beyond the
asteroid belt required genetic modification (to allow the squishy hairless
monkeys to hibernate for the required time).

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lawpoop
I've always thought the only realistic way life would spread throughout the
galaxy would be by engineered space-faring cells. Being synthetically created,
they would technically be human offspring.

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semi-extrinsic
In Alistair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe, there are mentions of the
"Americano era", which was an earlier attempt to settle star systems in the
way you describe. The Americano civilication crashed in one generation because
growing up without parents, a higher percentage (I think ~2-3%) of people
became murdering psychopaths. That such people would be off their rockers is a
plausible hypothesis, but fortunately no-one's tested it.

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techdragon
The headline reminded me of the anime "Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet"

It's pretty good and on Netflix, at least it is in Australia.

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spdegabrielle
I thought this was going to be about hacking our own DNA (perhaps like the
water bear) to harden it for space travel.

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rswier
I am reminded of H. R. Giger's designs for the movie Alien. They don't seem so
far-fetched now.

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mshaler
And especially the prequels...:)

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cousin_it
No mention of self-modification?

