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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 5558917" data-attributes="member: 8835">When somebody says "you're one in a million", they're unscientifically referencing how unique you are.  It usually implies that there's nobody like you.However, with 7 billion people on the planet, mathematically it means that there are about 7 thousand people ready and able to take your place.Anyway, my core point is, ship cells, and enough humans to do the stuff needed, and you can avoid the "too small of a gene pool" problem.  Nobody breeds with each other until population size=x.  Until then, everybody makes babies from the frozen stock.  Thus avoiding limited combination issues.  I'm sure a geneticist could work out some sort of breeding plan based on how many women are on the colony, and what avoids in-breeding.  Culturally, this could be a shock, but given the planet just blew up, and in some cultures, women breed with whomever they are ordered to, I'm sure a polite explanation and an insemination tube will take care of the matter.On the iron womb thing, that's just an idea.  It would make it an easy way to restore animal stocks (and they DO have a faster cycle time).  Right now, I don't think there's much research on this technology (at least none getting any press), as it ranks up there with stem cell research on touchy subject.I'm giving biotech some credit, because in the last 20 years, they've made huge strides and there ARE things they could do that could help us survive.  It's not like NASA is going to carry the whole weight.  Consider in the 90's, the human genome project was going to take forever to do 1 man's DNA.  Now I hear there's multiple people done, and they're identifying what's what in useful ways.  I can have my new dog's DNA scanned and identified for what breeds she is for about $160.  We can reliably DNA modify animals and plants for traits.  Barring folks who are scared of such stuff, when you talk about stuffing 10,000 people into rockets to Mars, it's ALL scary, and it's ALL hoping for the best.</blockquote>

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