If we colonize planets on other stars in our galaxy, how can we have birds, snakes, reptiles, turtles, and other large egg producing animals?

[KelleyNice]

I discussed colonization of other star systems with my father who is very good at science and he didn’t know the answer. In time, we will be able to travel at 10% of the speed of light, robotics will be more advanced and more intelligent than humans, and we should be able to build artificial wombs for mammals. We can freeze grass, vegetable, tree and other plant seeds. And, we can freeze algae and other one cell organisms.

However, apparently large eggs, such as chicken eggs, cannot hatch if they have been frozen; especially at the near absolute zero temperature of outer space for the more than the 100 years it would take to travel to another star.

Also, is there a way to have fish and honeybees? Honeybees do not survive freezing. Also, fish cannot survive the near absolute zero temperatures of outer space for 100 years and perhaps their eggs freezing at near absolute zero.

Updates

+1 y

Only one person addressed my question. The others all went off the deep end.

[DWornock]

I can see that freezing millions of seed would be a way to have trees, vegetables, and other plants. And, freezing eggs from the various mammals letting them be born in artificial wombs plus freezing the sperm from millions of mammals to provide sufficient variability to prevent excessive inbreeding would transport all the mammals species including humans to a distant planet.
@Eternally-Heroic suggestion on honeybees would also work for other species. Perhaps falcons and ducks for birds. Then over the next 1 million years they would evolve into hundreds of bird species. Also, a few species of spiders, insect, and reptile. In time they would evolve into thousands of species.

Who knows? By then we might be able to travel at 99% of the speed of light taking only 15 years to travel 100 light years.

[Eternally-Heroic]

Well. There’s a number off things to consider. One that’s the eggs that don’t survive. You could cryogenically freeze the animal itself and have it reproduce once it gets there. So the eggs themselves never undergo freezing.

as for bees. You could make an ecology for the bees that allows them to exist in their own little corner of the ship unfrozen and in a near utopia for the bees. With some occasional automated population control to keep the numbers in check you could have honeybees in your new homworld.

[Eternally-Heroic]

It’s also important to remember we will be far more advanced when we do achieve space colonization levels of technology that we will have far more advanced solutions.

Also bringing in invasive animals into a wild unknown world might not be a great idea. Depeinging on the ecosystem we could really mess things up

[DWornock]

@Eternally-Heroic It is highly unlikely that we would mess an ecosystem because almost certainly, the planets will not have life. In fact, earth may be the only planet in our galaxy and possibly our universe that has. We have searched the heavens for over 50 years and found nothing. We have ability of detecting an oxygen atmosphere on some planets in other star system and found none. We sent a probe to and searched for life or if life ever existed and results were negative.

[abc3643]

This is a very good question and I am very happy to see a 13-year-old girl asking it.
I am also happy to see that you did your homework! Yes, 10% of the speed of light is a practical upper limit.

Most likely, terraforming would be necessary and that takes a long time.

You are also on the right track about artificial wombs (and they exist already - Google "biobags").
Sperm and ova or other genetic material are all freezable. In fact, right now, we do that. Couples who need IVF (in vitro fertilization) often have embryos frozen. In principle, embryos or larvae for any multicellular organism on Earth could be frozen and transported.

A major problem is lack of genetic diversity; if you don't have a large enough population in a colony, you get "genetic drift" (Google that). So, even a successful interstellar colony would need around 40,000 people to avoid genetic drift.

I could go on and on for hours about this topic.
(I used to work in a think tank for space issues.)

You are more than welcome to private message me if you want.
I will follow you.

[abc3643]

Biobags...
www.theguardian.com/.../artificial-womb-for-premature-babies-successful-in-animal-trials-biobag

[KelleyNice]

@abc3643 The Toba eruption has been linked to a genetic bottleneck in human evolution about 70,000 years ago, which may have resulted in a severe reduction in the size of the total human population due to the effects of the eruption on the global climate. According to the genetic bottleneck theory, between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, human populations sharply decreased to 3,000–10,000 surviving individuals. It is supported by some genetic evidence suggesting that today's humans are descended from a very small population of between 1,000 and 10,000 breeding pairs that existed about 70,000 years ago.

Therefore, it may not take 40,000. Maybe 4,000 would suffice. However, that would take a lot of artificial wombs, even if utilized over a hundred years. If the genes from X chromosomes, doesn't create excessive inbreeding, we could freeze the sperm from 40,000 men and use that sperm to impregnate every woman's second or third baby over the next 10 generations. Men might prefer to sire their own children but I believe most men would accept it if one in four of their mates children was not sired by them but by the sperm of exceptionally gifted men.

[jshm2]

You don't.

Most animals will not survive a space journey. The best bet would be taking DNA and genetic material and "spawning" animals for the planet, on arrival.

This is one reason space exploration is not possible. Food is a human requirement, and plants alone don't cut it when in extremes.

You also should wait until you complete high school before discussing these topics, as you don't know much.

It will take more than light speed to get to any habitable planet, robotics is physically impossible to be "more advanced and more intelligent" than humans as they aren't conscious or capable of anything without humans. Thus you didn't discuss anything meaningful with your father and he gave you generic answers.

[KelleyNice]

Sperm and fertilized human eggs can be frozen and will survive. Once there, place the egg in an artificial womb. Had you read what I wrote, you would have known, I didn't suggest transporting live mammals. That is why I asked about large eggs that cannot survive being frozen because of ice crystals, etc.

[MrOracle]

We have plenty of time to figure these things out. The fastest man-made object in the galaxy is Voyager II, which just recently left the solar system after 40 years of travel at over 35,000 miles per hour. At this speed, IF it was moving towards the closest star to our own (it isn't, but if it was), it would only take 40,000 more years to get there.

10% of light speed isn't nearly fast enough to think about planets outside of our own solar system. And in my opinion we are far, FAR away from knowing enough to have any chance of terraforming a planet - we're still making major mistakes here on Earth by bringing non-native species to different areas of our own planet and causing havoc. The amount of stuff we don't know is massive.

[Wsx2wsx2ws]

It makes you wonder. If that amount of intelligent planning is required to get already existing life to thrive on other planets, what did it take to get it here, in such perfect interdependent balance?

Consider this too. It seems that the earth was the start not the end. It was formless and waste as stated in the beginning, just like the other planets. Once the universal issues raised here on this planet are settled we very possibly will move to work on other planets. Thankfully without all the conflicting drama.

[NamerOfStars]

Well, NOTHING that we know of can survive hard vacuum for a century; even tardigrades peak out at less than two weeks. The obvious answer to moving people to another star (we can't survive being frozen, either) is Orion-program style generation ships, but those have a problem for other species: peristalsis. In microgravity, a lot of other organisms can't swallow properly. Even here on Earth, we can drink normally even while we're upside-down.

But creatures without our throat muscles will be in serious trouble.

[KelleyNice]

We are freezing million of seed in Norway's vault and all over the we freeze sperm and human eggs. If vacuum is a problem they will be stored in sealed pressurized containers. If necessary, they can be frozen for thousands of years. When the find a suitable planet, it will not have life but will water and an atmosphere of 20 to 30 CO2. The probe will place algae in bodies of water and seeds all over the planet and send the info back earth. By the time the ship arrives with hundreds of artificial wombs, the planet will be full of vegetation and a 20 to 30 percent oxygen atmosphere. The ship will land on the planet and highly intelligent robots will place human and other fertilized mammal eggs and raise them to an appropriate age.

[NamerOfStars]

And you don't foresee problems raising human infants with no adults?

Harry Harlow, whedbdid YOU get on G@G?

[KelleyNice]

@NamerOfStars At the present time, yes. However, in less than 100 years robots will be far more capable and intelligent then humans. They may look human and you won't know they are robots.

[vald9inches]

Hmmmmm a very interesting question!!!
Well depending on the size of the colonization ship we can make sort of an ark for all the animals including large mammals such as elephants and whales (yes finally space whales!! lol) and we could use hibernation technology that avoids the problems of freezing while keeping all the cells alive of the animal alive and potentially their eggs too.

Also depending on our technological advancement all we would need is the DNA information and computers and machines can just 3D print or grow the animals at the destination.

if we are not capable of any of that we can resort to brute force by making generational ships with an entire biome and have multiple generations of animals and humans born and live and die on the ship until we get to the destination.

[Adam1978]

Well a egg is actually not the beginning of the production cycle, I am sure you can replicate the egg creation process. And in the future we could have flying zoo. So we could move them if we really wanted. The question is why should we move animals to another planet that doesn't benefit us or our work on the planet. We will be farming chicken meat without chicken by then.

[Static_In_The_Attic]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/oijEsqT2QKQ

In Jurassic Park it was well said when LIFE FINDS A WAY was said & that will be a line I will always remember. In the future anything is possible & in the future with the right technology things might & will be different.

[captain_voidwalker]

Well you could use advanced cloning technologies to create the animals once you get to where you are going and cryo storage works for seeds and the like. As for the crew you make whats called a generation ship. Basically the decendants of the people who launched the ship are the ones who will actualy colonize the new location they arrive at.

[KelleyNice]

Who knows what is possible in a million year, but in the foreseeable future, cloning requires birth and sending people would be far more expensive and difficult then inserting fertilized eggs in an artificial wombs that we are on the verge of being able to make. And certainly in the near future, robots will be more capable and intelligent then humans, and with them waiting a thousand years during the voyage is nothing.

[KelleyNice]

And like most of the others you never addressed the question: How can we have birds, snakes, reptiles, turtles, and other large egg producing animals?

[normalice]

We could actually move the entire solar system. The science behind it isn't even complex. Just a Dyson sphere powering what would effectively be an enormous 2-way rocket, one side pushing the sun, the other side pushing the other direction.

[OneManOnly01]

The 10% speed of light part is certainly interesting but on what basis do you say that? And how exactly would we be able to travel at that speed?

[KelleyNice]

A hydrogen fusion engine would accelerate the ship. Since it is not possible to carry enough fuel, once the ship is outer space and traveling it would funnel the hydrogen atoms within a 1,000 foot diameter into its fusion engine and accelerate the ship. There are hydrogen atoms in the near vacuum of outer space and a lot in the 1,000 feet diameter, trillions of mile long cylinder the space ship travels through.

[OneManOnly01]

Hydrogen fusion engine? Is there anything on an engine that works on hydrogen fusion yet? And how do we know if hydrogen fusion will create enough kinetic energy to move at 10% the speed of light? And this is the trickiest part in my mind.

[KelleyNice]

If you keep asking questions, my father is going to be annoyed with me. At this time, our technology is not capable of generating sufficient energy with fusion. But scientists are thinking about it and are trying to. There is lots of hydrogen in outer space. Where do you think the stars come from? Even if only one H2 per cubic in (the average is 100 times higher), there would be 10,000 kg of hydrogen in the cylinder I described.

[OneManOnly01]

Are you into science yourself too? Do you like physics and some physical chemistry?

[OneManOnly01]

@kelleynice And one thing to keep in mind is that even if you have energy, it may not be possible for the rocket or spaceship to consume as much energy per unit time (generate enough power) as is required to be able to move at such a high velocity. It might be millions of watts of power and that much power might just destroy everything in close proximity.

[abc3643]

@OneManOnly01

Google "Bussard Ramjet"

The 10% c value is realistic.

First, because a spacecraft traveling too fast will not be able to detect and then avoid debris sufficient to survive. To detect hazards, the spacecraft will have to send out the equivalent of a radar signal and then get a return signal from any object. At high speeds, Doppler shifting will transition the signal, but simply once the signal has returned, by the time you take action to avoid it, it's too late.

Secondly, the higher the speed, the more radiation will be produced by atoms in space impacting the spacecraft. Traveling very fast creates a de facto radiation hazard.

[KelleyNice]

I'm not into physics and chemistry and I don't have the math required for physics anyway; at least not yet. However, I do like science involving people and animals. That includes evolution, possible space travel, and life if it exist anywhere else in the galaxy. I pester my father all the time with questions, but he doesn't mind if I don't call him too much at work.

[KelleyNice]

@OneManOnly01

[OneManOnly01]

@kelleynice Really? Do you know about Tigers?

[KelleyNice]

@OneManOnly01 I know that lions social animals and live in packs while tigers are solitary animals. However, they are close enough related that in captivity they have been bred and produce hybrid offspring--ligers and tigons that are sterile.

[OneManOnly01]

@kelleynice Well, that’s true but only partially. Tigers are actually very social. Male Tigers have large territories and there are female Tigresses which have their own sub-territories WITHIN the male Tiger’s territory and the females live with cubs. The male Tigers often visit their family (females and cubs) every once in a while. They even bring food for their cubs and mates and unlike male Lions, male Tigers let the females and cubs eat first and then they eat the leftovers.

And Asiatic Lions are often solitary, they sometimes live on their own or in pairs.

[KelleyNice]

OneManOnly01 Okay! Thank you.

[OneManOnly01]

@kelleynice You’re welcome!😊

[Telekinetic-Potato]

Do you know how many animals and plants are just totally made up by humans? That's almost not even gonna be a problem by then.

[TheMajesticKing777]

I think they will leave all earth life on earth and people will evolve with new types of nutrients, most likely veggies

[007kingifrit]

this is very easy to solve. we don't need to transport them at all. just copy the DNA and bring it with you. it's just a little bit of data that tells you how to rebuild the animal. print out the full adult animals and they'll make eggs

[Likes2drive]

Most things can’t survive that freeze because of the cells getting destroyed from the expansion of ice crystals at the cellular level, they need new techniques for that

[Anonymous]

The first ships will be generational, so presumably you would farm whatever you were going to take with you.

[blondfrog]

if you can terraform a planet like Mars and create enough trees, water and oxygen it could work.

[grega239]

You could build facilities that would simulate earths environment

[Tstrbrainer]

Cryo freezing?