A Note on Interstellar Migration

From my guest blog at Paul Gilster's influential 'Centauri Dreams' website, concerning interstellar migration. Sound crazy? SCIENCE magazine's recent edition focuses on exoplanets, now being discovered monthly, highlighting 'habitability'. Why highlight habitability? Because those are the places we humans are going if we don't wipe ourselves out first. Today Earth had its 'hair parted' by a space rock that could have wiped out civilization had it struck our planet--and in galactic terms, it came close.

"Over the course of several generations, as on voyages to nearby stars with propulsion systems that are beginning to seem reasonable, interstellar voyaging is entirely possible from a genetic perspective, with two provisions. First, we will have to ensure the genetic health of the colonist population as it will be under strong founder effect. Gene therapies, carrying genes from Earth in the form of stored eggs and sperm, and even the artificial induction of mutations can all be used to mitigate such effects, but at some point it will cease to be desirable to keep ‘pushing’ a human Earth genome into interstellar space. This brings us to the second proviso, and that is that natural selection will in fact return as a significant concern in human evolution, particularly when the unknowns of new planetary environments are encountered (even if they are surveyed by reconnaissance vehicles first).

We should note that, in the currently-considered timelines and populations, according to what we know about human biology it is unlikely that humanity will undergo speciation in less than a few thousand years (Figure 1, lower right).

These lessons remind us that adaptation is a continual process of the adjustment of the genome to environmental conditions. In non-humans that evolve reactively, with no conscious effort, this equilibriating process is slow and uncentralized and results in many extinctions over time. In humanity, consciousness can be used to help proactively shape our evolution, but we must remember that the only way to stop evolution is by extinction. We should accept and learn from the fact that if things live, they evolve and adapt. We should plan our adaptation to space as students of evolution. We must internalize the truth that the nature of the universe is change, not fixity, and allow this truth to condition our plans for the human colonization of space."

Glove Remount

This morning I woke with an urge to go straight to work removing the old, bulky glove mounts and replace them with much slimmer mounts; I dressed, turned on the radio and set to it, feeling good to finally take the dive after a year of thinking about how to do this. Five hours later, I have one remount completed. Now for a bite to eat, then knock out the other one (which will be a little more complicated as it includes the suit pressure gauge)! In the lower photo you can see the larger mount removed, an inch greater in diameter than the new mount. I also now have four rather than two hose clamps employed, and I feel confident enough with this build to stake my life on it in the altitude chamber in Copenhagen this August. Once both gloves are remounted, I will work on seaming in a new integration with the suit's pressure restraint garment. Just one of close to 65 items on the To Do list -- there is no time to lose!

Fingertip Reinforcement

The fingertips of the gloves are fraying -- I've used the suit in over 30 pressure tests now, including underwater! -- so I'm painting on a rubberized fingertip coat. Easy enough. This is not meant to hold pressure, that's done by the blue gas-impermeable layer you see under the fraying cotton cover layer on the gloves in one of the photos above. This just reinforces the glove tips, and the stickiness of the rubber can add a little dexterity.

Vivaldi

It seems that Vivaldi flew down from space, delivered these goods, and then flew off, back to space!

Spanish Translation of my Scientific American feature

I'm always thrilled to be translated for a wider audience; recently my January 2013 feature on space colonization, for Scientific American has been translated for Investigacion y Ciencia, the Spain-based version of Scientific American. I've also recorded a podcast with Scientific American, which is available here, and my next item for them will be a report on this year's Mars Society meeting, where I will give a plenary address, and the 100 Year Starship Study conference in Houston, Texas.

Pressure Test

Another pressure test (actually, four) this weekend; thankfully we now have a reliable team of dedicated people aboard; I simply can't do this alone anymore. Photos show Nicholas Walleri working down a checklist, and his perspective of the tests, to the right and behind me. As in a flight, he has a webcam looking at me that can be used to help if we lose voice comms and have to go to hand signals. Also in the second photo is Ben Wilson, who has been in the suit twice now, and will, with me, next weekend spend several hours in the suit as we slay one last technical Dragon! Thanks, team! Photos by yet another Ben, Ben Robbins, and off-camera is Alexander Knapton, who has devised a great way to route the extra coolant hoses, which I will be sewing in tonight!

Larger-Gauge Bailout Breathing Gas Manifold

The small hoses for breathing gas were a bad idea, but they did get the systems proved out. Now I'm going to larger-gauge manifolds to match hoses; the photo shows today's rebuild of the bailout breathing gas manifold; the old, smaller one is held there for comparison. Easier breathing all around! Pressure test tomorrow, knocking out some of the 100 or so items on the pre-Copenhagen altitude chamber test!