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