Consumer
Elder Statesman
There are Billions of people on this planet.
In "rough" terms, and for ease of later pairings, you need about 1000 breeding pairs of humans to be genetically stable enough to re-populate or colonize. You can go as low (in theory) as 16 pairs, but the risk is high and the pairings for many subsequent generations will have to be strictly controlled (no "love children").
So, lets say we get "Captain Trips" from King's "The Stand", or 2012 is suddenly proven really to be the end of the world, or there's going to be a big flood, or whatever. We have commercially available orbital spacecraft now, we have prototype Inflatable modules on orbit. NERVA (Nuclear Rockets) could be resurrected quickly, and work better than the early prototypes with all of the materials science and simulation tech developed since the 60's and they would put Mars within reach. Evacuation to space/the Moon/Mars, etc of 2000 individuals is technologically and industrially easily within TODAY's capabilities, given about 3 years warning. We can build the ships if we don't care about cost.
However, how do you pick the people? Random lot? Genetic Testing? Some other measure of success (IQ or other test, economic achievement,or academic degrees, for example?). Would you disqualify Stephen Hawking? Do you pick the "warm" colonists via some criteria but take frozen sperm/eggs from a larger sample? Do you screen for genetic disease?
And what, Fellow TK'rs, do you do if you aren't picked?
Do we send a "pure" human race to the stars? Do we take a quick chance to do a little slicing and splicing? Do we try to keep distinct "races" or blend everyone?
Food for thought...
In "rough" terms, and for ease of later pairings, you need about 1000 breeding pairs of humans to be genetically stable enough to re-populate or colonize. You can go as low (in theory) as 16 pairs, but the risk is high and the pairings for many subsequent generations will have to be strictly controlled (no "love children").
So, lets say we get "Captain Trips" from King's "The Stand", or 2012 is suddenly proven really to be the end of the world, or there's going to be a big flood, or whatever. We have commercially available orbital spacecraft now, we have prototype Inflatable modules on orbit. NERVA (Nuclear Rockets) could be resurrected quickly, and work better than the early prototypes with all of the materials science and simulation tech developed since the 60's and they would put Mars within reach. Evacuation to space/the Moon/Mars, etc of 2000 individuals is technologically and industrially easily within TODAY's capabilities, given about 3 years warning. We can build the ships if we don't care about cost.
However, how do you pick the people? Random lot? Genetic Testing? Some other measure of success (IQ or other test, economic achievement,or academic degrees, for example?). Would you disqualify Stephen Hawking? Do you pick the "warm" colonists via some criteria but take frozen sperm/eggs from a larger sample? Do you screen for genetic disease?
And what, Fellow TK'rs, do you do if you aren't picked?
Do we send a "pure" human race to the stars? Do we take a quick chance to do a little slicing and splicing? Do we try to keep distinct "races" or blend everyone?
Food for thought...
