Monday, June 20, 2011

Launching Human Genomes Into Space...?

Fragmented human genomes could be shipped toward the stars and reconstructed upon their arrival, spawning the first interstellar citizens and avoiding the problems of long-distance space survival.
That’s just one idea — proposed by genome pioneer J. Craig Venter — emerging from the field of dreams seeded by DARPA’s 100-Year Starship project. DARPA is collecting proposals for a conference on the starship project this fall. You can submit ideas through July 8; find out more here.
We have no idea what interstellar travel might look like in 100 years, of course — just as Jules Verne could never have conceived of the technology required to really send humans to the moon when he wrote about it in 1865. But if we start now, we can make it happen, according to David Neyland, who directs DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office.
“One hundred years is a pretty good period of time in terms of inspiring research to go off and tackle really hard problems that you don’t even know which questions to ask at the beginning,” he said in a conference call Thursday.

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