[stouset]

I suppose zero is a pretty significant number.

Without new physics that isn’t even remotely visible on the horizon and that utterly contradicts most of what we believe to be true, this isn’t going to happen. Robotic AI probes sent to other star systems to send back telemetry? Sure, fine. Flesh bags sent to self-replicate on terraformed worlds out in the stars? Not a whisper of a microscopic chance.

[WalterBright]

If you can sent probes to other star systems, you can include with it information of the DNA of life forms and a device to create terran life.

[joquarky]

It takes far more than DNA to recreate a human.

[drannex]

important part: "and a device to create terran life".

@WalterBright, I've always preferred the idea that to explore the stars the only chance we have at doing so is by bio-growing humans (cloned?), and somehow uploading and downloading a current humans consciousness into the form.

basically 'seeding the universe' since we would just start sending little seeds of human life everywhere. :-)

[stouset]

> "and a device to create terran life“

… and all the devices and nutrition necessary to sustain that Terran life until it can become self sufficient—without the help of preexisting humans to teach them or impart physical skills—on a rock with either no life, inhospitable life, or nutritionally incompatible life.

You might as well call that device a magic wand.

[WalterBright]

> magic wand

With today's technology, sure.

I never thought I'd live to see AI. But here it is.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Clarke

[stouset]

Any sufficiently advanced imaginary technology is capable of performing anything you feel like imagining. That doesn’t make it plausible or convincing.

[stouset]

You’re forgetting food. And supplies, information, and know-how to get these lab-grown terrans to be capable of survival on a completely foreign celestial body that lacks soil, vegetable, or animal life.

And for what? What do we actually accomplish after pouring vast resources into the dystopian science project of bootstrapping a society of a handful of permanently isolated terrans on a planet we weren’t evolved to survive on light years away?

There’s zero hope of meaningful trade or exploitation of resources. Who is going to light the money on fire to make this happen and why?

This is fantasy material, not reality.

[WalterBright]

> There’s zero hope of meaningful trade or exploitation of resources

Probably correct, but the transmission of information can be very valuable.

BTW, you'll never know what the lives of your grandchildren will be like. But you make children anyway.