Difficulties in Implementing The Concept
Major difficulties with the idea being implemented include needed advances in various technological areas. In addition there are biological and ethical problems. The proposal, together with any other space colonization concept, depends on facts that are not known today.
- Robotics: Whether it will be possible to develop fully autonomous robots that can build the first settlement on the target planet and raise the first humans, is unclear. In addition, the psychological effects on humans of being raised by a robotic space probe (and their effects on subsequent generations) are unknown and difficult to assess.
- Artificial Uterus: Artificial wombs are not available today. Scientists are however already working on this technology.
- Long-duration computers: Computer hardware would need to function reliably over long periods of time, in the range of several thousands of years.
- Propulsion: Furthermore, a propulsion system would be required that could accelerate the EIS to a high speed and slow it down again upon nearing the destination. Even assuming a speed one hundred times faster than any of today's spaceprobes and a target planet within a couple of hundred light years would lead to a journey lasting several thousand years.
- Exoplanet found: Finally this depends on the existence of an exoplanet qualifying for colonization within a reachable distance. Current science missions like COROT, Kepler or Darwin may very well yield results for this requirement within the next 3 to 4 years.
Read more about this topic: Embryo Space Colonization
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