Embryo space colonization
Encyclopedia
Interstellar travel
Interstellar space travel is manned or unmanned travel between stars. The concept of interstellar travel in starships is a staple of science fiction. Interstellar travel is much more difficult than interplanetary travel. Intergalactic travel, or travel between different galaxies, is even more...
space colonization
Space colonization
Space colonization is the concept of permanent human habitation outside of Earth. Although hypothetical at the present time, there are many proposals and speculations about the first space colony...
concept that involves sending a robotic mission to a habitable terrestrial planet
Terrestrial planet
A terrestrial planet, telluric planet or rocky planet is a planet that is composed primarily of silicate rocks or metals. Within the Solar System, the terrestrial planets are the inner planets closest to the Sun...
transporting frozen early-stage human embryo
Embryo
An embryo is a multicellular diploid eukaryote in its earliest stage of development, from the time of first cell division until birth, hatching, or germination...
s or the technological or biological means to create human embryos. The proposal circumvents the most severe technological problems of other mainstream interstellar colonization concepts. In contrast to the sleeper ship
Sleeper ship
A sleeper ship is a hypothetical type of manned spaceship in which most or all of the crew spends the journey in some form of hibernation or suspended animation. There is currently no known technology that allows for long-term suspended animation of humans....
proposal, it does not require the more technically challenging 'freezing' of fully developed humans (see cryonics
Cryonics
Cryonics is the low-temperature preservation of humans and animals who can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future. Cryopreservation of people or large animals is not reversible with current technology...
). In addition, in contrast to both a sleeper ship
Sleeper ship
A sleeper ship is a hypothetical type of manned spaceship in which most or all of the crew spends the journey in some form of hibernation or suspended animation. There is currently no known technology that allows for long-term suspended animation of humans....
and a generation ship
Generation ship
A generation ship is a hypothetical type of interstellar ark starship that travels across great distances between stars at a speed much slower than the speed of light...
, the resources needed to build a spacecraft for an embryonic space colonization effort are considerably lower in terms of pure mass and complexity of the spacecraft. Furthermore, embryos may be launched from the Earth by cheap human-incompatible space gun
Space gun
A space gun is a method of launching an object into outer space using a large gun, or cannon. It provides a method of non-rocket spacelaunch.In the HARP Project a U.S...
s.
Various concepts
Embryo space colonization concepts involve various concepts of delivering the embryos from EarthEarth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
to an extrasolar planet
Extrasolar planet
An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System. A total of such planets have been identified as of . It is now known that a substantial fraction of stars have planets, including perhaps half of all Sun-like stars...
around another star system.
- The most straightforward concept is to make use of frozen embryos. Modern medicine has made it possible to store frozen embryos in various low-development stages (up to several weeks into the development of the embryo).
- The technologically more challenging but more flexible scenario calls for just carrying the biological means to create embryos, that is various samples of donated spermSpermatozoonA spermatozoon is a motile sperm cell, or moving form of the haploid cell that is the male gamete. A spermatozoon joins an ovum to form a zygote...
and egg cellsOvumAn ovum is a haploid female reproductive cell or gamete. Both animals and embryophytes have ova. The term ovule is used for the young ovum of an animal, as well as the plant structure that carries the female gametophyte and egg cell and develops into a seed after fertilization...
. - Going a step further, the spacecraft "cargo" could be limited just to the genetic information of humans stored in as computer files. In this case, sperm and egg cells would need to be recreated by a biosequencer at the target planet (this proposal is currently not technologically feasible).
Mission at target planet
Regardless of the "cargo" used in any embryo space colonization scenario, the basic concept is that upon arrival of the embryo-carrying spacecraft (EIS) at the target planet, fully autonomous robotRobot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
s would build the first settlement on the planet and start growing crops
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
. More ambitiously, the planet may be terraformed
Terraforming
Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
first. Thereafter the first embryos could be unfrozen (or created using biosequenced or natural sperm
Spermatozoon
A spermatozoon is a motile sperm cell, or moving form of the haploid cell that is the male gamete. A spermatozoon joins an ovum to form a zygote...
and egg cells
Ovum
An ovum is a haploid female reproductive cell or gamete. Both animals and embryophytes have ova. The term ovule is used for the young ovum of an animal, as well as the plant structure that carries the female gametophyte and egg cell and develops into a seed after fertilization...
as outlined above).
In any event, one of the technologies needed for the proposal are artificial uteri
Artificial uterus
An artificial uterus is a theoretical device that would allow for extracorporeal pregnancy or extrauterine fetal incubation by growing an embryo or fetus outside of the body of a female organism that would normally internally carry the embryo or fetus to term.An artificial uterus, as a...
. The embryos would need to develop in such artificial uteri
Artificial uterus
An artificial uterus is a theoretical device that would allow for extracorporeal pregnancy or extrauterine fetal incubation by growing an embryo or fetus outside of the body of a female organism that would normally internally carry the embryo or fetus to term.An artificial uterus, as a...
until a large enough population existed to procreate by natural biological means.
Comparison to other interstellar colonization concepts
- Proposals of sleeper shipSleeper shipA sleeper ship is a hypothetical type of manned spaceship in which most or all of the crew spends the journey in some form of hibernation or suspended animation. There is currently no known technology that allows for long-term suspended animation of humans....
s and generation shipGeneration shipA generation ship is a hypothetical type of interstellar ark starship that travels across great distances between stars at a speed much slower than the speed of light...
s require very large spacecraft 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, an EIS would have feasible small dimensions in the range of today's spacecraftSpacecraftA spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
, as the most important "cargo" would not need much space or weigh very much. - Sleeper shipSleeper shipA sleeper ship is a hypothetical type of manned spaceship in which most or all of the crew spends the journey in some form of hibernation or suspended animation. There is currently no known technology that allows for long-term suspended animation of humans....
proposals call for freezing adult humans. While there is research into hibernationHibernationHibernation is a state of inactivity and metabolic depression in animals, characterized by lower body temperature, slower breathing, and lower metabolic rate. Hibernating animals conserve food, especially during winter when food supplies are limited, tapping energy reserves, body fat, at a slow rate...
, the complexity of a living fully developed human body may make the sleeper ship proposals much more difficult. - While sleeper ships and generation ships would deliver to a prospective colony world a population that has undergone some degree of education, training, and socialization in areas reconcilable with those of the sponsor culture (e.g. historical, scientific, and technical education, language acquisition, an understanding of the original mission and broader cultural norms), individuals who are born into colony worlds through embryo space colonization would lack this education.
Difficulties in implementing the concept
- Robotics: Whether it will be possible to develop fully autonomous robots that can build the first settlement on the target planet and raise the first humans, is unclear. In addition, the psychological effects on humans of being raised by a robotic space probe (and their effects on subsequent generations) are unknown and difficult to assess.
- Artificial Uterus: Artificial wombsArtificial uterusAn artificial uterus is a theoretical device that would allow for extracorporeal pregnancy or extrauterine fetal incubation by growing an embryo or fetus outside of the body of a female organism that would normally internally carry the embryo or fetus to term.An artificial uterus, as a...
are not available today. Scientists are however already working on this technology. - Long-duration computers: ComputerComputerA computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
hardware would need to function reliably over long periods of time, in the range of several thousands of years. - Propulsion Furthermore, a propulsionSpacecraft propulsionSpacecraft propulsion is any method used to accelerate spacecraft and artificial satellites. There are many different methods. Each method has drawbacks and advantages, and spacecraft propulsion is an active area of research. However, most spacecraft today are propelled by forcing a gas from the...
system would be required that could accelerate the EIS to a high speed and slow it down again upon nearing the destination. Even assuming a speed one hundred times faster than any of today's spaceprobes and a target planet within a couple of hundred light years would lead to a journey lasting several thousand years. - Exoplanet found Finally this depends on the existence of an exoplanet qualifying for colonization within a reachable distance. Current science missions like COROTCorotCorot may refer to:* Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, French landscape painter * COROT, a space mission with the dual aims of finding extrasolar planets and performing asteroseismology* COROT-7, a dwarf star in the Monoceros constellation...
, KeplerKepler MissionThe Kepler spacecraft is an American space observatory, the space-based portion of NASA's Kepler Mission to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. The spacecraft is named in honor of the 17th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler...
or DarwinDarwin (ESA)Darwin was a suggested ESA Cornerstone mission which would have involved a constellation of four to nine spacecraft designed to directly detect Earth-like planets orbiting nearby stars and search for evidence of life on these planets...
may very well yield results for this requirement within the next 3 to 4 years.
Examples in fiction
- James P. HoganJames P. Hogan (writer)James Patrick Hogan was a British science fiction author.-Biography:Hogan was born in London, England. He was raised in the Portobello Road area on the west side of London...
's novel Voyage from YesteryearVoyage from YesteryearVoyage from Yesteryear is a 1982 science fiction novel by the author James P. Hogan. It explores themes of anarchism and the appropriateness of certain social values in the context of high-technology....
features a planet that was colonized many generations ago by an automated ship capable of abiogenesisAbiogenesisAbiogenesis or biopoesis is the study of how biological life arises from inorganic matter through natural processes, and the method by which life on Earth arose...
from computerized DNA records of humans and other Earth life, now being visited by a more advanced interstellar spacecraft capable of carrying an adult crew.
- Richard MorganRichard MorganRichard K. Morgan is a British science fiction author.Morgan studied history at Queens' College, Cambridge. After graduating he started teaching English in order to travel the world...
's novel, Broken AngelsBroken AngelsBroken Angels is a military science fiction novel by Richard Morgan. It is the sequel to Altered Carbon, and is followed by Woken Furies.- Plot :...
(a sequel to the first Takeshi Kovacs novel Altered CarbonAltered CarbonAltered Carbon is a hardboiled science fiction novel by Richard K. Morgan. Set some five hundred years in the future in a universe in which the United Nations Protectorate oversees a number of extrasolar planets settled by human beings, it features protagonist Takeshi Kovacs...
), shows Embryo Colonisation as the only one humanity could have ever developed, with only STL travel and string communication being available to them. It describes also, its stages and flaws.
- Tomasz Kołodziejczak's novel "Caught in the Lights"(the second book in the Solar Dominium dilogy) describes embryo space colonisation in two stages, the robotic and the embryonic. There was a time period in the books universe called " The Sperm Wars", in which embryos were forced to rapidly grow and fight to defend the colony. Most of those children never reached adulthood due to either forced growth suspension, or being killed in action.
- Jack WilliamsonJack WilliamsonJohn Stewart Williamson , who wrote as Jack Williamson was a U.S. writer often referred to as the "Dean of Science Fiction" following the death in 1988 of Robert A...
's Manseed has as a protagonistProtagonistA protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
one of the robots responsible for protecting and assisting colonists created on a new planet by an automated "seedship", though in this case the colonists are "born" as full adults and with implanted knowledge recorded from preexisting humans via mind transferMind transferWhole brain emulation or mind uploading is the hypothetical process of transferring or copying a conscious mind from a brain to a non-biological substrate by scanning and mapping a biological brain in detail and copying its state into a computer system or another computational device...
technology.
- In Yukinobu HoshinoYukinobu Hoshinois a Japanese manga artist. He was born in Kushiro, Hokkaidō and dropped out of Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music mid-semester from the fine arts department. He made his debut in 1975 with Kotetsu no Queen and with Harukanaru Asa won the Tezuka prize for an outstanding manga. On...
's 2001 Nights2001 Nightsis a science fiction manga series written and illustrated by Yukinobu Hoshino and originally serialized in Futabasha's Monthly Super Action starting from June 1984. It was then collected into three bound volumes by Futabasha, released between August 18, 1985 and October 24, 1986...
manga, Night 4 showcases an interstellar mission where an automated ship bearing frozen embryos is launched with the help of a cometCometA comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...
. Two later chapters, or "Nights," in the series explore what happens to the mission after it touches down on the surface of the destination world.
- In David BrinDavid BrinGlen David Brin, Ph.D. is an American scientist and award-winning author of science fiction. He has received the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards.-Biography:...
's The River of TimeThe River of TimeThe River of Time is an anthology of science fiction short stories by David Brin.-Contents:*"The Crystal Spheres"...
(1986), the short story Lungfish - which prominently features Von Neumann probeVon Neumann probeThe idea of self-replicating spacecraft has been applied — in theory — to several distinct "tasks". The particular variant of this idea applied to the idea of space exploration is known as a von Neumann probe...
s - mentions a class of probe called Seeders which seem to be a type of self-replicating EIS.
- In Alastair ReynoldsAlastair ReynoldsAlastair Preston Reynolds is a British science fiction author. He specialises in dark hard science fiction and space opera. He spent his early years in Cornwall, moved back to Wales before going to Newcastle, where he read physics and astronomy. Afterwards, he earned a PhD from St Andrews, Scotland...
' Revelation SpaceRevelation SpaceRevelation Space is a 2000 science fiction space opera novel by Welsh author Alastair Reynolds. It was the first novel set in the Revelation Space universe, although the then-unnamed universe had already been established by several published short stories....
series a faction of humanity known as "Amerikano" sent numerous colonization ships out into the galaxy. Almost all of these missions ended in failure, although they did have some success. The planet "Yellowstone", which is a notable planet in the Revelation SpaceRevelation SpaceRevelation Space is a 2000 science fiction space opera novel by Welsh author Alastair Reynolds. It was the first novel set in the Revelation Space universe, although the then-unnamed universe had already been established by several published short stories....
Trilogy and the primary location for another novel in the same setting, "Chasm City".
- In Arthur C. ClarkeArthur C. ClarkeSir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
's novel, The Songs of Distant Earth (1986) humans respond to the prospect of unavoidable doom by launching a series of robot colony seedships into space, to continue Earth life after the destruction of the homeworld (caused by the Sun becoming a nova). Thalassa is colonised by one such ship, but loses contact due to a natural disaster. As technology advances the mantle of colonization is then taken up by sleeper shipSleeper shipA sleeper ship is a hypothetical type of manned spaceship in which most or all of the crew spends the journey in some form of hibernation or suspended animation. There is currently no known technology that allows for long-term suspended animation of humans....
s. Meanwhile, just as the predicted time of cataclysm is due to elapse, vacuum energy technology is invented to allow the construction of one near-light-speed vessel, the Magellan, which is launched to build the last colony of mankind. (Previous colony ships involved frozen embryos, or various forms of DNA synthesis. In Magellan, a living crew is transported in cryonic suspension.) The Magellan will also assist in terraforming the colonists new planet, Sagan Two.
- In the episode Scorched Earth of the TV Science Fiction series Stargate SG-1, a ship created by extraterrestrials known as the Gadmeer was in the process of 'terraforming' a planet (or rather, adapting it for non-terran life). It contained genetic information from all the life forms of the sulphur-breathing Gadmeer's home planet, all the knowledge of the Gadmeer, and things of cultural importance to the Gadmeer, and was to re-create them once the 'terra'-forming process was completed.
- In the animated film Titan A.E., during the destruction of Earth by alien invaders, a ship is launched with the DNADNADeoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
of every species on the planet.
- In Vernor VingeVernor VingeVernor Steffen Vinge is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels and novellas A Fire Upon the Deep , A Deepness in the Sky , Rainbows End , Fast Times at Fairmont High ...
's 1972 short story Long Shot, the story of an attempt at embryo space colonization is told from the point of view of the artificial intelligenceArtificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
bearing the embryo through interstellar space. In his Marooned in Realtime, which posits a society with few remaining Earthlings, artificial womb technology is discussed as necessary to rebuild the population of Earth, since a sufficient rate of natural reproduction would be unfeasible.
- The failed MMOMassively multiplayer online gameA massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
SeedSeed (computer game)Seed was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Runestone Game Development. Aiming for a radically different experience than most other games in the genre, the game focused on character interaction and politics to the extent that combat was entirely removed from the...
revolved around the concept of embryo space colonization.
- In Pamela SargentPamela SargentPamela Sargent is an American, feminist, science fiction author, and editor. She has an MA in classical philosophy and has won a Nebula Award. She wrote a series concerning the terraforming of Venus that is sometimes compared to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, but predates it...
's novel Alien Child (1988) humanity is extinct except for two children raised by aliens that were found in a storeroom full of embryos. The storeroom was built before humanity destroyed itself with wars. The children have to decide whether to revive the other embryos or let the human race die completely.