From: John Marlow (johnmarlow@gmx.net)
Date: Tue Feb 06 2001 - 22:09:11 MST
SPIKE! SPIKE! I HAVE YOUR SOLUTION!
What you need to do is recruit pygmies, midgets, and dwarves for
astronaut training and perhaps voluntary selective breeding. Have
them carry the goop to make full-sized humans when they get there. Of
course, you may well wind up with a society whose idea of a good time
is boiled heads and roasted aardvarks, but what the heck...
Things you're not considering: Whoever goes, if it's a one-way trip
they won't be happy campers. Even if they were volunteers, they'll
come to resent those who sent them, perhaps everyone on earth. Not a
good thing for those in charge of beginning a second civilization.
Also--you have to feed and air-supply the full-sizers once you've
grown them. If you didn't bring the food with you--where's it coming
from?
You mentioned the speed with which civilizations can arise. Sure--but
that's here, where you don't need to worry about where your next
breath is coming from and the nearest source of abundant food isn't
78 million kilometers away on the far side of vacuum.
john marlow
On 6 Feb 2001, at 7:19, Chuck Kuecker wrote:
> 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
>
John Marlow
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