Christopher E. Mason

The Next 500 Years (eBook, ePUB)

Engineering Life to Reach New Worlds

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

An argument that we have a moral duty to colonize other planets and solar systems, and a plan for doing so. Inevitably, life on Earth will come to an end, whether by climate disaster, or by cataclysmic war, or when the sun runs out of fuel in a few billion years. To avoid extinction, will we have to find a new home planet, perhaps even a new solar system, to inhabit? In this provocative and fascinating book, Christopher Mason argues that we have a moral duty to do just that. Because we are the only species aware that life on Earth has an expiration date, we have a responsibility to act as the shepherd of lifeforms--not only for our species but for all species on which we depend and for those still to come (by accidental or designed evolution). Mason argues that the same capacity for ingenuity that has enabled us to build rockets and land on other planets can be applied to redesigning biology so that we can sustainably inhabit those planets. And he lays out a 500-year plan for undertaking the massively ambitious project of reengineering human genetics for life in other worlds.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: MIT Press
• Seitenzahl: 296
• Erscheinungstermin: 20. April 2021
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780262360067
• Artikelnr.: 59085874

Autorenporträt

Christopher E. Mason is a geneticist and computational biologist who has been a Principal Investigator and Co-investigator of seven NASA missions and projects. He is Associate Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine, with affiliate appointments at the Meyer Cancer Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and the Consortium for Space Genetics at Harvard Medical School.

Inhaltsangabe

INTRODUCTION: THE EMBRYOGENESIS OF HUMANITY xi
1 THE FIRST GENETIC ASTRONAUTS 1
2 THE DUTY TO ENGINEER 15
3 PHASE 1: THE LANDSCAPE OF FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS
(2010 2020) 27
4 PHASE 2: PRELIMINARY ENGINEERING OF GENOMES
(2021 2040) 47
5 PHASE 3: LONG-TERM TRIALS OF HUMAN AND CELLULAR
ENGINEERING (2041 2100) 97
6 PHASE 4: PREPARING HUMANS FOR SPACE (2101 2150) 115
7 PHASE 5: SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY FOR NEW HOMES
(2151 2200) 133
8 PHASE 6: EXPANDING THE LIMITS OF LIFE (2201 2250) 155
9 PHASE 7: TEST A GENERATION SHIP AND SETTLE HARSH
WORLDS (2251 2350) 169
10 PHASE 8: SETTLE NEW EARTHS (2351 2400) 191
11 PHASE 9: LAUNCH TOWARD THE SECOND SUN (2401 2500) 213
12 PHASE 10: OPTIMISTIC UNKNOWNS (BEYOND 2500) 247
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 255
REFERENCES 259
INDEX 267