Theorist Suggests Seeding Life on Exoplanet 12,000 Years Away

With the concept of colonizing Mars and the Moon are becoming more popular, some scientists are even considering a type of Hail Mary play: seeding life on planets way, way out there. 

Doomsday Hedge vs Panspermia

To hedge against A.I. taking over the Earth, a backup colony on the Moon or Mars may still be close enough and vulnerable to attack. So, successfully starting something far away may have higher chances of survival albeit at a higher risk of failure getting there. 

German theoretical physicist, Claudius Gros, from Goethe University believes seeding life is more important than building colonies and that we have the technology to do it.

Well, why not try both? The closest viable exoplanet would take us about 12,000 years to get there, so we could have colonized our entire solar system by then right? 

Gros proposes using laser propulsion technology, like Stephen Hawkins' Breakthrough Starshot probe, which can travel up to 100 MILLION miles per hour, but instead using a much heavier 1.5-ton spacecraft traveling much slower. With this payload capacity, we could orbit an exoplanet by dropping "mini-labs" to grow genes and cells to kickstart human life. Gros' target is TRAPPIST-1 but the recently discovered Ross 128b is also an option.

Hypothetical Problems

Riding a laser beam with a light sail to get there fast is fine but what about stopping? To actually slow the spacecraft down enough to fall into planetary orbit, Gros proposes a magnetic drag sail. Acting like a parachute in space catching just photons of light. 

“The reason for the magnetic sail is to create a magnetic field without loss of energy. You don’t want to expend energy, so you generate the field once, and then with a superconducting loop, the current stays forever, and the magnetic field stays forever.” Claudius Gros, German theoretical physicist

The above depicts an ionized proton (blue) undergoing deflection via magnetic field (magenta). Image credit: Journal of Physics Communications

The sail would need to be 31 miles in diameter to stop the 1.5-ton ship but it would require the entire journey to take 12,000 years! 

After the 12,000-year trip, "any life would take many billions of years to mature," Gros said. 

I don't know about you guys, but that's a deal-breaker for me. Why don't we reverse engineer UFO technology and travel through time-space dimensions instead? Blink 182 band member, Tom DeLonge, just announced he's partnering with key former members of our "secret" space program to build such a craft from scratch in 8 years. (ToTheStarsAcademy.com)

Investing in advancing transportation technologies may be a much more viable and practical solution as it can make the impossible possible. Such energy technologies could be very clean and efficient, thereby replacing dirty inefficient technologies. This could lead to a total paradigm shift, or rather require completely stepping outside the box of our preconceived notions limiting our exploration towards higher-level sciences. 

Onward and upwards.

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Sources:

https://futurism.com/scientist-plan-send-building-blocks-life-distant-exoplanets/

Pence Pledges That US Will Go To Moon, Mars, And Beyond

Vice President Mike Pence speaks in front of NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery at the National Space Council first meeting at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks with Vice President Mike Pence, right, during the National Space Council's first meeting at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Vice President Mike Pence, right, accompanied by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks during the first meeting of the National Space Council at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Vice President Mike Pence delivers opening remarks during the National Space Council's first meeting, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The National Space Council, chaired by Pence, heard testimony from representatives from civil space, commercial space, and national security space industry representatives. (Joel Kowsky/NASA via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seated before the grounded space shuttle Discovery, a constellation of Trump administration officials used soaring rhetoric to vow to send Americans back to the moon and then on to Mars.

After voicing celestial aspirations, top officials moved to what National Intelligence Director Dan Coats called "a dark side" to space policy. Coats, Vice President Mike Pence, other top officials and outside space experts said the United States has to counter and perhaps match potential enemies' ability to target U.S. satellites.

Pence, several cabinet secretaries and White House advisers gathered in the shadow of the shuttle at the Smithsonian Institution's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center to chart a new path in space — government, commercial and military — for the country.

It was the first meeting of the National Space Council, revived after it was disbanded in 1993.

Vice President Mike Pence, right, accompanied by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks during the first meeting of the National Space Council at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

But details, such as how much the new ideas will cost, were scant and outside experts said they've heard grandiose plans before only to see them fizzle instead of launch.

"We will return American astronauts to the moon, not only to leave behind footprints and flags, but to build the foundation we need to send Americans to Mars and beyond," Pence said.

Space industry leaders say they and NASA are building the spaceships to get there. And they're promising that in five years, astronauts could be working around the moon
David Thompson, president of the space company Orbital ATK, said NASA's Orion capsule and super-sized Space Launch System rocket should be ready in a couple years, so flying around the moon and even making a lunar orbiting outpost is within reach. But he said a lunar landing would take longer. Blue Origin rocket company chief executive officer Bob Smith said his firm could have a lunar lander program ready within five years.

No humans have been on the moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972.
Only 12 men have set foot on the moon, all have been Americans.

Vice President Mike Pence delivers opening remarks during the National Space Council's first meeting, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The National Space Council, chaired by Pence, heard testimony from representatives from civil space, commercial space, and national security space industry representatives. (Joel Kowsky/NASA via AP)

"Past presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush proposed returns to the moon and then going on to Mars. Barack Obama rerouted the moon plan to an asteroid as a first-stop with Mars as the goal. All plans had lack of money keeping them from coming true," said space expert Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation. He wasn't part of the council meeting.

"Is it going to happen? Who knows? I feel like I've been disappointed so many times I refuse to get excited," said Roger Launius, a longtime space historian.

And Gwynn Shotwell, president of SpaceX, said her company next year will launch astronauts to the International Space Station, the first American launch of people since 2011.  After the 2003 space shuttle Columbia broke apart on descent, then-president George W. Bush announced the phasing out of the space shuttle program. Eventually, NASA started building new multi-billion dollar ships, the Orion capsule and the SLS mega-rocket.

Pence several times bemoaned a U.S. space program that had fallen behind, asking space executives what they thought.

"America is out-innovating the world in space launch," Shotwell said, noting that her company had launched 13 rockets this year, more than any other nation.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks with Vice President Mike Pence, right, during the National Space Council's first meeting at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 in Chantilly, Va. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

After talking about how "we will blaze new trails into that great frontier" Pence turned the discussion to the dangers of space and how much of the U.S. intelligence system and day-to-day life are dependent on commercial satellites operating safely. And he and others outlined threats to those satellites from potential enemies that could cripple American security and daily life.

Experts worried that satellites could be destroyed and debris in orbit could ruin others. Pence asked if the U.S. should "weaponize" space.

"The choice whether or not to weaponize space is not one that we can make. We can only decide to match and raise our adversaries who are already weaponizing space," former NASA chief Michael Griffin said. "That horse is already out of the barn."

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said the country needs to "deter and when necessary defeat adversaries' counter-space efforts...  We may not start it but we will finish it."

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears . His work can be found here .