Hyphothetical Terraforming

[merid]

Just a hypothetical.

Do you think when/if humanity goes into space, that we should terraform planets or should be just adapt ourselves, whether through insulated complexes or genetic manipulation?

[thod]

Both will be needed. You need photosynthesis as a primary energy collector. You cant do this yourself, the energy collected from a tree doesnt allow any spare for movement etc. Thus you will have to terraform. To optimise for the new environment you would also modify the humans, evolution takes way too long.

[ShaiGar]

Easier to just use dome-ships (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

[Tenacious B]

We form the earth to suit our needs, so I would fully expect us to form any new worlds to our needs as well.

Mankind will do what it needs to do in order to survive and to make our survival more probable.

[thod]

Not really we evolved to this planet. It screws up you biorhythms when you have a 30 hour day. Getting tired when walking is not the only problem with 1.5g, every fall will break bones. There is the problem astronauts have with calcium leaving the bones at 0g. There will be a whole raft of unexpected problems with the body. If you are under a red sun you have problems with vitamin D synthesis, what if there are missing trace elements or too much.

You cant just plant some seeds and live there. One solution would be a body to survive in deep space. That gives you infinite space, you could engineer multiple redundancy and repair systems to handle radiation. But you still need energy systems and resources. So solar sail shaped humans would still need minerals to build the bodies. I wouldn't be happy drifting around a star soaking up energy. I want tools and structures, I want rich energy sources so I don't have to spend all day feeding too.

Currently the big restraining factor on life is liquid water. Nothing grows in the desert or arctic after 4.5 billion years of evolution. If you cant do chemistry you cant have life as we know it. This severely limits the temperature range we can live at.

[Mozzes]

Nothing grows in the desert or arctic after 4.5 billion years of evolution.

Could you explain what you mean by this? There are bacteria and archaea living now in some of the most inhospitable places on earth - near volcanic vents on the ocean floor in boiling water and in the arctic and antarctic permafrost.

[thod]

Could you explain what you mean by this? There are bacteria and archaea living now in some of the most inhospitable places on earth - near volcanic vents on the ocean floor in boiling water and in the arctic and antarctic permafrost.

Aye, but all you get there is a few microbes. There are no higher forms of life in places with no water. The only reason they are there is because they do have small amounts of liquid water, they have adaptations to protect against its loss. The point I am making is that plants have had ample time to find solutions to living in the Sahara yet haven't managed to do so. The microbes are so sparse and slow growing that there isn't a food chain. If there was no water at all they would not exist.

The basic problem is one of chemistry, you need water to do anything. It would be nice if you could do the chemistry of life with dry powders. Then you could buy up desert land and farm it. It opens a whole raft of problems like how you would get the powders to mix.

The moon has no air and mostly no water and no life. It will have received injections from Earth after meteor strikes but there is no colonization. The extremophiles you refer to could not survive with zero water. The cell membrane is not adapted to stand vacuum either.

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[Xenolar]

Just a hypothetical.

Do you think when/if humanity goes into space, that we should terraform planets or should be just adapt ourselves, whether through insulated complexes or genetic manipulation?

I myself have read a bit about terraforming. I think it would be a wonderful idea to terraform planets, provided that the process will not use up too much time and too many resources.

[Mozzes]

Aye, but all you get there is a few microbes. There are no higher forms of life in places with no water. The only reason they are there is because they do have small amounts of liquid water, they have adaptations to protect against its loss. The point I am making is that plants have had ample time to find solutions to living in the Sahara yet haven't managed to do so. The microbes are so sparse and slow growing that there isn't a food chain. If there was no water at all they would not exist.

The basic problem is one of chemistry, you need water to do anything. It would be nice if you could do the chemistry of life with dry powders. Then you could buy up desert land and farm it. It opens a whole raft of problems like how you would get the powders to mix.

The moon has no air and mostly no water and no life. It will have received injections from Earth after meteor strikes but there is no colonization. The extremophiles you refer to could not survive with zero water. The cell membrane is not adapted to stand vacuum either.

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Yes, I understand all of that perfectly, I was asking for clarification on your statement:

"Nothing grows in the desert or arctic after 4.5 billion years of evolution."

Outer space and the moon are neither desert or arctic.