Re: from 6 billion to 500 million: how?

From: Chuck Kuecker (ckuecker@mcs.net)
Date: Tue Feb 06 2001 - 06:19:49 MST


At 10:32 PM 2/5/01 -0800, you wrote:
>John Marlow wrote:
>
> > My point?... It's expensive. Deal with it. (And not by launching
> > dismembered astronauts to save weight.)
>
>How about humans genetically modified to 10 kg? Humans
>have genetically modified poodles and chihuahuas (~4kg) from
>wolves (~50 kg). Similarly domestic cats from the wild variety.
>No, forget it, unethical. Damn. Those born tiny would not be
>volunteers. We can use only volunteers.

Ever compare the intelligence of a house cat to a lion? Or a chihuahua to a
Great Dane?

The resulting creature would be mostly brain, not much use for colonization
or exploration unless backed by mucho hardware, which I believe would
outweigh the traveler by quite a bit.

Unless you are going back to the idea of sending a modified (or crippled)
woman to breed a colony, as as discussed last year? Even then you need
quite an infrastructure.

Chuck Kuecker



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