Phase III – Stealth Is.

Humans have sent probes to planets and asteroids throughout our solar system. But we’ve never come close to propelling a manmade object as far as another star.

“We are planting seeds for an organization. Consequently we are not taking starship crew applications at the present time.”

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Think the crushing weight of larger planets might be too much to prevent life? Think again! A new discovery from Japan has shown that microbes can survive 403,627 × g — yes, that’s more than 400,000 times Earth’s own gravity.

Prokaryotes are already known to survive extremes of temperature, acidity, radiation and pressure — and this shows that gravity won’t stop them either. It looks like any major obstacle to extraterrestrial life isn’t from the gravitational side of things. With these results, we’ve discovered life that could exist even in conditions as extreme as the surface of a cold brown dwarf star.

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“Our only chance of long term survival is not to remain inward looking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space,” Stephen Hawking said in an interview Friday with Big Think. “We have made remarkable progress in the last hundred years. But if we want to continue beyond the next hundred years, our future is in space.”

“It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn’t have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let’s hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load.

“I see great dangers for the human race. There have been a number of times in the past when its survival has been a question of touch and go. The Cuban missile crisis in 1963 was one of these. The frequency of such occasions is likely to increase in the future. We shall need great care and judgment to negotiate them all successfully. But I’m an optimist. If we can avoid disaster for the next two centuries, our species should be safe, as we spread into space.

“If we are the only intelligent beings in the galaxy, we should make sure we survive and continue. But we are entering an increasingly dangerous period of our history. Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth, are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill.  But our genetic code still carries the selfish and aggressive instincts that were of survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million.  That is why I’m in favor of manned, or should I say ‘personed,’ space flight.”

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“Eventually, the day will come when life on Earth ends. Whether that’s tomorrow or five billion years from now, whether by nuclear war, climate change, or the Sun burning up its fuel, the last living cell on Earth will one day wither and die. But that doesn’t mean that all is lost. What if we had the chance to sow the seeds of terrestrial life throughout the universe, to settle young planets within developing solar systems many light-years away, and thus give our long evolutionary line the chance to continue indefinitely?

According to Michael Mautner, Research Professor of Chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University, seeding the universe with life is not just an option, it’s our moral obligation.

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Mautner says that “directed panspermia” missions can be accomplished with present technology.

“We have a moral obligation to plan for the propagation of life, and even the transfer of human life to other solar systems which can be transformed via microbial activity, thereby preparing these worlds to develop and sustain complex life,” Mautner explained “Securing that future for life can give our human existence a cosmic purpose.”

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the strategy is to deposit an array of primitive organisms on potentially fertile planets and protoplanets throughout the universe. Like the earliest life on Earth, organisms such as cyanobacteria could seed other planets, digest toxic gases (such as ammonia and carbon dioxide on early Earth) and release products such as oxygen which promote the evolution of more complex species. To increase their chances of success, the microbial payloads should contain a variety of organisms with various environmental tolerances, and hardy multicellular organisms such as rotifer eggs to jumpstart higher evolution. These organisms may be captured into asteroids and comets in the newly forming solar systems and transported from there by impacts to planets as their host environments develop.”

Read more at PhysOrg

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