[ExI] Monkeys in Space

[Stuart LaForge]

On 2026-03-30 02:33, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote:

> Yes, I think that habitats in orbit make more sense than colonies on 
> planets. That would certainly solve the gravity problem, but it still 
> leaves radiation shielding (there are ways to generate artificial 
> magnetospheres, but you still need to replicate the effect of a couple 
> of hundred miles of atmosphere, for shielding against high-energy 
> neutral particles), which means a lot of extra mass, and the simple 
> fact that we need a hell of a lot of oxygen, water, and food, as well 
> as all the myriad other requirements of biological organisms, which 
> contrasts very starkly with the probable requirements of uploads.
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NASA is already working on that. They have tested radiotrophic fungi 
aboard the ISS and got good results. You could use the space between 
inner and outer hulls and bulk heads to store water and culture 
radiotrophic fungi (c.f. Cladosporium sphaerospermum) to act as a form 
of living radiation shield, allowing it to convert ionizing radiation 
into biomass that can then be processed into food or chemical fuel for 
the people in the colony. Turning radiation from a hazard into an energy 
source. Turning obstacles into opportunities is exactly how humanity 
will colonize space.
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> 
> In practice, I think that if biological humans ever do live in space in 
> any numbers, it will have to be preceded by upload colonisation and the 
> creation of a lot of infrastructure, and the question remains: would it 
> be worth the bother and expense? Especially when an uploading solution 
> exists. You'd also have to haul tons and tons of fragile flesh up our 
> steep gravity well, which is very expensive no matter how it's done, 
> vs. a few watts of electricity to transmit some data. more I think 
> about it, the less I think that 'monkeys in space' is a viable 
> scenario.
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I think there will be be people in space before uploads become a viable 
technology. The difficulty lies in a large set engineering problems 
encompassing various disciplines. But the problems are finite and 
solvable. For example, we already roughly sketched out a viable 
Interplanetary Transport Network and these routes could be calculated 
and optimized on the fly by computers. We are close to developing fusion 
rocket engines that  use Helium-3 as fuel. Helium-3 is abundant on the 
moon and lunar helium mining could become a space-based industry.

I, for one, have high hopes humanity's future in space.

Stuart LaForge