[extropy-chat] 10th Planet Discovered

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Mon, 15 Mar 2004, Brent Neal (commenting on Eugen's comments) wrote:

> You assume colonization as a fait accompli, essentially. You also (apparently
> from your previous email on the subject) assume the inevitability of molecular
> replicators.

We already have molecular replicators.  They are called bacteria.  And they
would function quite well on any planet where one could land a power source
sufficient to produce and maintain liquid water for a period of time.  This
probably includes at least Mars and Europa.  Perhaps Triton (though it might
be a rather unusual liquid environment for which bacteria would need to be evolved
if they do not currently exist.)  Several other moons of Jupiter probably also
qualify as do most comets and the outer planets if one has a sufficiently powerful
power source to prevent the liquid from freezing.

> I would certainly prefer that the possibility of colonizing the solar system
> not be dependent on the development of a technology that may or may not be possible,

What is not possible about it?

> or if possible at all, be centuries away.

This mindset will shift significantly when one has the first man-made assembled
from scratch genome and organisms based on such.  That will happen within this
decade.

> We have the technology -right now- to colonize the inner system, were we to
> bootstrap carefully, and to gain large returns from doing so.

The "large returns" assertion is open to a *lot* of debate.  For example I've
never seen a comparison between spending $200B to go to Mars (and produce nothing
for Earth) and spending $200B on standardized solar cell factories that crank
out lots of low cost solar cells here on Earth every year.

> Why wait for self-replicating nanomachines?

Because if it is nanotech based its mass is low.  If it has low mass getting it into
space is cheap (even Egypt is launching a microsat into space).  As the recent Mars
missions have shown -- it doesn't have to have a perfect program so long as you
can evolve its program as it becomes determined what is necessary.

> Yes, but what does this have to do with whether this body is considered a planet or not?

I think we will need to evolve a new classification system.  One that
combines the "usefullness" of the material content with the difficulty
of getting it out of its normal gravity well.  For example small objects
high in CO/CO2 ice may be much more valuable than large objects composed
mostly of hydrogen or heavy elements.  The current perspective of planets
is historical -- based on whether they were large enough to be "seen"
(which we know is an evolving figure of merit depending on how good
the optics one has available are).  On the other hand a new scale would
be based on the engineering and economic value of an object.

Robert