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RE: starship-design: Re: Bugs again



Hello Lee,

>You raise a very interesting point, but perhaps not one you intended to
>raise.

Indeed I was not yet concentrating on the survival of the original planet
biosphere.

>What right do we have to casually doom billions of creatures to death by the
>mere act of breathing?
>
>No, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of staying in space.

Of course there may be something in between, we may be able to live on the
surface of a planet and use its resources, but inside a spacestation-like
habitat. And if we go outside we go in space suit equivalents. (Except that
we may not have to produce oxigen and don't have as much pressure or
heat/cold problems.) Our waste could be ionized or at least decomposed in
such a way that it would be completely harmless.

My guess is that *small* cross contaminations won't be hazardous, since it
is few against many and the few are in a foreign environment, so they will
be killed before they can give their genetic deviations by each
multiplication a chance. So rupturing a space suit may not be the end of
your live, nor the life on the planet, as long as you quickly do something
about it.

But of course, as long as we haven't experience with alien lifeforms, we
can't be sure. However since we will be wanting to study alien biotopes
from close by, I don't think it is that strange to "park" our spacelab
right next to them.

Timothy