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Space

"Encounter 2001" To Send Human DNA To Space 162

Posted by timothy from the the-only-way-my-DNA-will-spread dept.
Scoria writes: "CNN dot com reports that the Houston based company Encounter 2001 will ship a part of your DNA to space in 2003 for $50. They're apparently hoping that aliens will find the "message" that they send. The ship will use solar sails the size of a football field as its primary accelerator and will take fifteen years to pass Pluto, at which point it will be travelling at 7.8 miles a second. Pioneer 10, alternately, is currently moving at 7.605936 miles (12.24 km)/sec. There are 4.5 million total slots, go make sure that there are in fact geeks in space!"
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"Encounter 2001" to send human DNA to space More

"Encounter 2001" to send human DNA to space

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  • Good thing I'm not paranoid (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Let me get this straight... First, we send them directions. Now, we're sending them our genetic makeup? I hope aliens aren't hostile to our descendants.

    Or, what if "helpful" aliens thought the probe was a plea for help sent by another earth species and that the DNA was of a harmful species? Would they send help?

  • free blueprints for slave race, anyone? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Ok, folks. Let's imagine following:
    We send out dna to space, everyone's happy, nothing ever seems to happen, etc. Then, after some few hundred years or so, there is first contact to an alien race, and we find out they're using our species as slaves. Cloned from the very dna we sent out ourselves. How would you feel? What would you do? Fight for freedom of the slaves, eh?

    Lesson of the story: If it's sent out to them, it's a gift, and not even shrink-wrap licenses packed up with the stuff can stop them from doing with it what they want to.

  • Re:And animal DNA? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    label the containers: "This is us" (full of human DNA samples) and: "This is what we like to eat" (full of animal DNA samples) This will probably drive all those lama-faced aliens so mad into killing us, they'll develop a superstrain virus to kill all humans.
  • Kodos: Those humans are acting up again. Now they are sending up biological information about themselves.
    Kang: Let me see the samples. Oh no! What a despicable tub of goo. Let's determine the identity connected to each of the humans that contributed to this goo. Hopefully there will be enough information in there to uniquely identify every single one. We can use these humans as slaves in our mining camps!
    Kodos: Excellent!
  • How do you prevent degradation of the DNA in space? What are the assembly instructions like? Is there a use for DNA, or is it even recognizable as biological instructions, outside of a cellular context? Wouldn't you need a biological container, or stem cells, or something?
  • The Incas were far from "primitive." They had metallurgy, architecture, and over 103 species of potato. They did lack gunpowder.


    Their fall to Spain was much more due to their lack of immunity to smallpox than anything the Spanish intentionally did.


    What politically correct stuff you've been reading? The Inca's were defeated before they even had a chance of contracting any diseases.


    They were defeated by Pizarro, the first Spaniard that went over there with only 180 soldiers, to explore mostly, and then realized that they either had to fight or be had.


    The Spaniards faced an army of 80000 Incan soldiers, and things looked grim for them. But they managed to pull off their ambitious plan of striking panic in the Incan ranks. It succeeded so well, that they used the same tactic in several following battles where they were similarly outnumbered.


    That was the end of the vast Incan empire. In a matter of weeks. No time for any diseases to spread.

  • I read that book several years ago.

    I guess Spinrad had to have been a very good writer to be able to turn out something that painfully bad on purpose.

    Now Dalton Trumbo's "Night of the Aurochs", on the other hand, apparently was intended to be good (like a bunch of his other stuff) and unfortunately it really wasn't.

    For a well-written book about Nazi's by someone who really knew his stuff, try William L. Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". Too bad it's not fiction.

  • "I did not have sexual relations with that woman..."

    "She was merely helping me prepare a specimen for a science project. Anybody got a fifty I can borrow? I left my wallet in my pants."

  • He's probably thinking of the Carib. They contracted European illnesses (that they had no defense for) very quickly.

  • Re:soo... (Score:1)

    by PD ( 9577 )
    Everyone knows that you don't send valuable things in the mail. The postman might take it. You might as well put a hundred dollar bill in there with the check.

  • Dawg-gone-it. Someone beat me to it.

    I remember reading it in Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions collection (or was it in D. V. Again, I forget.) Very early Seventies, I think. I remember ROTFLMAO about the arguments on how to spell ``jism''.


    --

  • I believe this was the premise of the movie
    "Species".
  • Scientists on Mars have recently decoded the message beamed back from the region of Alpha Centauri. After five years of research and computation, the message reads: "Thanks for the snack".
  • I reckon that they should also provide a represensitive amount DNA of animals from our planet. Maybe even the DNA of a simple food chain. The idea is that it would give any aliens an idea of what other life forms exist on the planet. If both land animals and see animals were included, it could be one way of explaining that we have both sea and land coverage.

    The ideal would be some sort of Noah's Ark, as imagined in Titan A.E., but in reality lets start with something reasonable by todays technology.
  • Rubbish. Jesus had several children by Mary Magdalene, and ran off to china, leaving his brother to die on the cross...

  • Better use of $50 (Score:5)

    by YoJ ( 20860 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @04:11PM (#150044) Journal
    I can think a better use of $50 to insure that your genes get propagated. It's called asking out that cute girl in class, taking her to a fancy restaurant, then knocking her up.
  • Not politically correct. I glossed over some of the detail of other issues, but this is factually correct.

    There was a raging civil war in the Inca empire at the time of Pizarro's conquest. Specifically, Atahuallpa Inca was gaining dominance over Huascar for control of the Inca Empire at the time of Pizarro's fourth mission. Pizarro had gone on three exploratory excursions beginning in 1524. (You'll see references to two missions, and his successful invasion as the "third" visit because the first expedition in 1524 never actually got to any part of the Inca empire.)

    The civil war was a fight over who would ascend the throne after both Huayna-Capac, the ruling Inca, and his heir, Ninan Cuyuchi died. On one of the earlier Spanish missions, smallpox had been introduced, and swept through the country. Both Huayna-Capac and Ninan Cuyuchi died of smallpox.

    The famous fourth mission, in 1532, is where Pizarro landed around Tumbez, on the northern coast. Tumbez was a ruin, destroyed by the civil war. Reinforcements followed Pizarro, and he began his conquest with 168 men and somewhere around 60 horses.

    From Tumbez, Pizarro & co headed south into the mountains towards Cajamarca. Around that same time, Atahuallpa's forces captured Huascar outside of Cuzco, and Atahuallpa was heading back to the capital. Both sides were demoralized by losses from both disease and battle. On the journey to Cajamarca, Pizarro successfully recruited locals who were loyal to Huascar to join his army.

    When they met Atahuallpa's army, the Spanish played a trick on the Atahuallpa's ambassadorial mission, and kidnapped Atahuallpa and killed his bodyguards. There was no large-scale conflict between the armies at this point.

    Here's where it gets very political and drawn out. Atahuallpa tries to ransom himself with a room filled with gold. Eventually, Pizarro has him murdered. During this period, however, Huascar's supporters were not idle, and were allying with various local tribes who had been oppressed by the Incas (like the Imara).
    There were numerous battles with varying groups, and the Inca empire was pretty much crushed.

    The event you're talking about, was during a final rebellion against the Spanish in 1536, where Manco Inca raised a huge army to attach the Spanish in Cuzco. This is where the badly outnumbered Spanish managed to break out of the siege on horseback and then quickly counterattacked the Inca army at Sacsayhuaman. This was, as you say, a stunning victory due to strategy, luck, and superior weaponry. It was not, however, how the Conquistadors took over the Empire.

    (Similarly, when Cortez took over Mexico City earlier, smallpox was killing over 1,000 Aztecs per day. The demoralizing effect of this, coupled with the Spanish armor, guns, and apparent immunity to the disease, all contributed to his victory.)
    bukra fil mish mish
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  • Good God, man! New World Produce is the sole legitimate differentiator of civilized and uncivilized.

    I'd go off on a lengthy screed about the spread of the peanut, chocolate, coffee, potatos, triticale, and so on, but I've already been labelled "politically correct," so I'll just shut up now.
    bukra fil mish mish
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  • Life imitates Art. (Score:3)

    by angst_ridden_hipster ( 23104 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @06:16PM (#150047) Homepage Journal
    This is almost exactly as predicted by Vonnegut in his short story, The Big Space Fuck, where "important men" show their importance by putting sperm samples aboard a rocket which is shot into interstallar space.

    This story, incidently, is supposed to be the first entry into the Library of Congress that has the word "Fuck" in its title.
    bukra fil mish mish
    -
    Monitor the Web, or Track your site!

  • The Incas were far from "primitive." They had metallurgy, architecture, and over 103 species of potato. They did lack gunpowder.

    Their fall to Spain was much more due to their lack of immunity to smallpox than anything the Spanish intentionally did.

    Then there are the Maori of New Zealand. They didn't have gunpowder or metal, but they invented what became modern trench warfare and seriously kicked ass until the British resorted to the Treaty and Treachery technique.

    By and large, though, the success of Western Imperialism owes at least as much to disease as it does technology.
    bukra fil mish mish
    -
    Monitor the Web, or Track your site!
  • Shouldn't that have come under "spam"? :)
  • Hmmm....Probably by the time the aliens get the human DNA, it will be so tattered by cosmic rays that the clones they make won't live.

    *or* When they get here, the tagging viruses they develop from it won't attach to members of our species. It may cause interestingly bizarre diseases in us, however.

    Another hmmm... you know that disease where a person's skin turns to stone? Maybe it's already happening....

    Oh yeah -- your question. Answer: clone a person's DNA four times (for a total of 5 spiral strands). Use a nanocomputer to constantly check across all 5, and when one base-pair gets zapped by cosmic rays, note the difference and repair it using the well-known gene repair protocol that already exists inside DNA.

    Why 5 strands instead of 3? Extra redundancy: what if 2 of the 3 strands were changed -- to *different* base-pairs -- before the the nanocomputer was able to react? It wouldn't know which of the three was correct.

    Of course, you'd need 5 copies of the nanocomputer too. The mind reels at all of the recursive juggling that would have to occur to make sure that all of the watchers -- and the watchers of the watchers, etc. -- were kept in working order.

    Anyway: what exactly is the *point* of sending human DNA into space? If we're so gung-ho to get human DNA out there, let's just cut to the chase and send *people*. (Or -- better yet -- the PDA version of people: smaller, cheaper -- and faster breeding.) It would be interesting to see how the selection pressure of energetic cosmic rays would push the DNA-evolution envelope.

  • 4.5 million times 50. Wow, thats $225,000,000. I wonder what their incentives are!

    You're not taking into account freebies for friends, and of course for celebrities for the promotional value! Call that 2000 people, that's a whole $100,000 they'll be missing out on...
  • and of course for celebrities for the promotional value!

    Just what we need, aliens cloning our boy bands...

    And this is different from current pop music how, exactly? :)
  • Encounter 2001 will ship a part of your DNA to space in 2003 for $50. They're apparently hoping that aliens will find the "message" that they send.
    "Hey gork, what do you make of this thing?"

    sniff, sniff!!!

    "Phew, I'm guessing it's some kind of alien contraceptive. Used, apparently."

  • well i thought it was funny.. if it was only $25 i'd do it.. anyone wanna go halfs? im sure it will probably burn-up in some star anyhow.. i just hope the Ma'gogg dont find out where it came from.. eeeek!
  • I'd be incredibly careful that my name is in no way associated with my DNA. The last thing I want is these folks turning around and selling it to who knows who so that they can eventually parse my DNA and know whole loads of stuff about me. If you were prone to bladder infections, and didn't even know it (I'm not btw, afaik), would you want some company knowing that you were and spamming you with bladder-infection medicine (or whatever) just before you're scheduled to start getting them. Or perhaps they could sell it to insurance companies. Anyway, read the license carefully.

  • Re:Frightening Idea (Score:5)

    by slickwillie ( 34689 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @04:11PM (#150056)
    I would consider it, but they should include copies of DMCA and UCITA, and shrink wrap the DNA. I wouldn't want some skanky alien bitch to reverse engineer me, and use me for her sex slave.
  • I can think a better use of $50 to insure that your genes get propagated. It's called asking out that cute girl in class, taking her to a fancy restaurant, then knocking her up.

    Welllllll.... until the asteroid hits, anyway.

  • They won't need our DNA to spank us (Score:3)

    by marcsiry ( 38594 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @04:45PM (#150058) Homepage
    Any alien race sufficiently advanced to travel the interstellar distances to reach us will be able to do whatever they please to us, DNA or no.

    In fact, we'd probably be beneath their notice. What can we, stuck on this pitiful rock, offer to a race that can span stars and mine asteroids? (Other than amusement, of course).

    Witness the results of every encounter between advanced human races and primitives (like the Spaniards and the Incas). It almost always ends up VERY poorly for the primitives (Japan was a notable exception).
  • Let's hope that any aliens that encounter the DNA don't take this as a hostile attack of some type of biological plague. I tell ya, some people out there... I'd want their DNA destroyed. Some humans just simply should not be allowed to propigate.

    -------
    CAIMLAS

  • Haven't you learned that security through obscurity doesn't work?
  • Would the above have been on topic if it mentioned The Boys from Brazil?
  • Hello! This is not a pyramid scheme, because we say so!
    Simply follow these instructions: Duplicate the enclosed genetic material using a polymerase chain reaction. Incubate one copy of the resulting DNA of the PCR reaction for 10 seconds in a in an accelerated artificial womb set to a ratio of 2,371,680:1, then decant. Email the resulting organism (a "human") to the name at the top of the list attached below (using standard MIME matter encoding and transmission protocols.) Delete the email address at the top of the list, and add your own at the bottom. Send as many copies of this letter, along with copies of the PCR-duplicated DNA, to as many of your friends, znarmates, and for that matter complete strangers as you can. By the miracle of geometric progression, in no time at all THOUSANDS of "humans" will come your way. BUT: Don't break the chain! Fribnar-belzapsle of Barnard's Star II broke the chain, and was promptly diced by a malfunctioning frebble. Threequietchimes of Lalande 21185 IX broke the chain and was voted to be that week's consumption member of his local colony group. For that matter, brainnode 0x3f2b9877d of epsilon Eridani VI broke the chain, and their entire planet was promptly turned to grey goo by runaway nanomachines. But I followed the instructions, and in less than 30 kiloseconds I was the proud owner of over 300 extremely musical, fertilizer-producing, delectably-regurgitating young humans! So act now! Here is the list, make sure you add names:

    belzar@massquan.com.wolf359
    colonysegment-alpha-14@qwr.edu.ev-lacertae
    napkinnumeratordrone376@workcubiclemegafarm452.b iz .eta -cassiopeiae
    snat@frelb.org.yzceti
    439angstroms@bluelight.com.rigel
    duckmouthfence@picosquish.com.vega
    ratpizzle@goatse.ax-microscopium
    10010100111101001@001110100100.1001.binar
    powersthatbe@overusedsentientplanetformula.com.m cc affrey

  • Sigh, Yes, this is redundant, and I have no objection to it being marked down here - I accidently reposted the same stuff twice, rather than what I wanted to reply here.

    Hazard of editing in a different window and then pasting. After too many hours and no sleep.

  • MAKE HUMANS FAST! (Score:5)

    by Velox_SwiftFox ( 57902 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @10:30PM (#150064)
    Hello! This is not a pyramid scheme, because we say so!

    Simply follow these instructions: Duplicate the enclosed genetic material using a polymerase chain reaction. Incubate one copy of the resulting DNA of the PCR reaction for 10 seconds in a in an accelerated artificial womb set to a ratio of 2,371,680:1, then decant. Email the resulting organism (a "human") to the name at the top of the list attached below (using standard MIME matter encoding and transmission protocols.) Delete the email address at the top of the list, and add your own at the bottom. Send as many copies of this letter, along with copies of the PCR-duplicated DNA, to as many of your friends, znarmates, and for that matter complete strangers as you can. By the miracle of geometric progression, in no time at all THOUSANDS of "humans" will come your way. BUT: Don't break the chain! Fribnar-belzapsle of Barnard's Star II broke the chain, and was promptly diced by a malfunctioning frebble. Threequietchimes of Lalande 21185 IX broke the chain and was voted to be that week's consumption member of his local colony group. For that matter, brainnode 0x3f2b9877d of epsilon Eridani VI broke the chain, and their entire planet was promptly turned to grey goo by runaway nanomachines. But I followed the instructions, and in less than 30 kiloseconds I was the proud owner of over 300 extremely musical, fertilizer-producing, delectably-regurgitating young humans! So act now! Here is the list, make sure you add names:

    belzar@massquan.com.wolf359

    colonysegment-alpha -14@qwr.edu.ev-lacertae

    napkinnumeratordrone376@w orkcubiclefarm452.biz.eta -cassiopeiae

    snat@frelb.org.yzceti

    439angstroms@ bluelight.com.rigel

    duckmouthfence@picosquish.com .vega

    ratpizzle@goatse.ax-microscopium

    100101001 11101001@001110100102.1001.binar

    powersthatbe@ove rusedsentientplanetformula.com.mcc affrey

  • Some wag will make their message

    "All your base are belong to us."

    and start an intergalactic incident. Just fantastic.
  • ENCOUNTER 2001 IS PEOPLE!

    - Todd

    P.S. The lameness filter thinks that my message has too much all-caps. So, please disregard this lowercase text. 8-)
  • Okay so I just went and watched "Evolution" (this is on topic) and well... I know it was a comedy in all but here's the lowdown. We send out DNA into space. The "aliens" can't figure out how it works cause it doesn't make any humans. But, as a gesture of good faith they send some of their "DNA" to us. We die. Great. Doesn't sound like a good idea to me.
  • Is this another bizarre US media euphemism for presidential bodily fluids? :D

  • I'm sorry, but this is too much like the climax (so to speak) of the novel-within-a-novel in Norman Spinrad's The Iron Dream for my comfort level.
  • Odds of this hitting any sort of planet are about a billion to one, and then odds of an alien race finding it are about a trillion to one. Evil ailens ate my sig...
  • Why do we have this collective image of the freindly peace loving alien? I think because its the opposite of the sci-fi 'big bad monster' archetype, but I seriously doubt either are true. If you're curious about what aliens would do with your DNA imagine if the US just got its greedy little hands on some alien DNA. It wouldn't be pretty. I doubt politics, national interests and security, economics, and warfare are just human creations.

  • Then there are the Maori of New Zealand. They didn't have gunpowder or metal, but they invented what became modern trench warfare and seriously kicked ass until the British resorted to the Treaty and Treachery technique.

    Actually, all of the Maori uses of trench warfare were after the treaty was signed.

    The Maori survived because they were able to adopt new technology and lifestyles faster than most of the other low-tech peoples of the time, and because it wasn't in the interests of the British to pound them the way the Spanish pounded the Incas.

  • I will send part of your DNA too (Score:3)

    by selectspec ( 74651 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @04:11PM (#150073)
    I will send your DNA into outerspace too. Just send me a check signed to "Cash" (name of spacecraft) for $50 and a vial containing the DNA. We'll put it on our giant solar sail powered rocketotron, and hurl it into outspace.

    Also, did you know that there are cute, young college aged girls that live near you who are lonely and want to meet men. Please help these girls out, by giving them a call at 1-900-ALL-BASE. (1.59/minute).

  • Support commercial space projects! (Score:4)

    by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @04:41PM (#150074) Homepage
    I am willing to spend $50 on this just to throw in my support for commercial space exploration. Solar sails are a great idea that NASA has not yet explored, and I'm glad to see someone trying it out.

    Now you all know, that they will NOT sell all 4.5 million of these things. How big is this ship anyway?
  • I think this is an interesting idea, but part of me feels that this is also a vague form of pollution. There are thousands of little bits of bolts/tools/metal scrap that float around the earth right now. NASA has a team of people who need to track this stuff so that spacecraft do not accidentally collide with a 10 gram lugnut that is travelling at thousands of miles an hour (imagine the chip that must put in your windshield...).

    I think of the physical aspects of projects like this are, at this point in our space-enabled-life, fairly inconsequential, but we should be thinking about it. however, the more troubling aspect is the idea of sending DNA across space and time, not really knowing if it could be considered a pollutant to other places, other life-forms, or even back to us.

    So the meanderings of my mind put together a few events. First, there is a belief that life might have started on this planet from basic building blocks deposited via asteroids. There is a fairly decent sized debate regarding the real/possible/potential up/down-side of geneticaly modified food. So if you take these two together, is there any chance that a project like this could backfire?

    The fair counterpoint is that there could also be some sort of windfall effect from this also...

  • The Incas were far from "primitive." They had metallurgy, architecture, and over 103 species of potato.

    I'm not convinced that potato speciation is really an accurate yardstick for technological advancement. But then again, I didn't even realize that there were 103 species of potato, so what do I know?

  • Hmmm... take an alien culture that's advanced enough to understand DNA, and what do you think they're going to do with it? Yeah, grow us some humans! Now the prospect of a clone of me making it with some alien chick is a bit... interesting, but there's an equal prospect that these aliens would just as soon clone me up to eat me. Hmmmm...

  • Re:Oh no! We can't give them that information. (Score:5)

    by jmv ( 93421 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @05:53PM (#150078) Homepage
    The problem with this is that we are giving the evil aliens the blueprints of our species. There is the chance, however unlikely, that they might find a weakness... and exploit it.

    They can't do that, it's illegal under the DMCA!
  • So your hair follicle will be frozen solid and blasted into oblivion by cosmic rays over the millenia. Big deal. What everybody really wants is to get to space alive. I've had an idea for quite some time that could be expanded to cover this option ... and adding YOUR VERY OWN DNA (YVOD, registered trademark) might just provide the funding required....Basically, there are some bacteria that love heat and acid [icm.uu.se], and Venus just happens to have that environment in cloud droplets [wisc.edu] at 40-50 Km. So let's get space colonization underway and send these little guys on the ride of their life [nasa.gov]. Before they go, we could add plasmids [washington.edu] spliced with YVOD (tm) and instead of inert frozen DNA, it would actually be active in the bacteria, contributing to its evolution and creation of the Venesian ecosphere by expression of your non-bacterial proteins. This isn't a nutty idea, already there is bacterial ecosystems being discovered in Earth's clouds [spaceref.com]. Any remaining dot-com millionaires out there who want to provide seed (pun) funding, I actually AM a rocket scientist and would love to get a project based on this idea (minus the plasmids, even) off the ground....or even just start a discussion about it.
  • "It's a cookbook!!!"
  • Space quests are still risky, certainly when it's beyond Pluto, furthermore, why would I want some jack-ass alien to clone me?
    --
  • I don't know about you, but I don't think I'm a direct descendant of Jesus.
  • In that vein, I believe the best form of birth control is a fake name :)

  • Sign me up! (Score:3)

    by Jonathunder ( 105885 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @04:51PM (#150084) Homepage
    When I was four, watching men walk on the moon, and for years later, I wanted nothing more than to grow up and be an astronaut. A very small part of me still does.

    And now, hey, now a very small part of me can be part of the first interstellar human hairball! Sign me up, [encounter2001.com] while I've still got hair to contribute!

  • isn't the earth enough as contaminated by humans?

    www.vhemt.org
  • if I can only figure out which part of DNA makes me 'full of shit' ... I woulnd't mind to send it to aliens.

  • Encounter 2001 will ship a part of your DNA to space

    Just part of it? Will it also come with a message that says:

    Thank-you for trying humans. If you enjoy them, you should consider registering them. What are the advantages of registration? With the full version, you get reproductive capability and higher learning. As an added bonus, we include hair-color changer and genital resizing programs.

  • The Cycle Completes (Score:5)

    by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @04:29PM (#150088) Journal

    Having developed launch capabilities, the hairless water-ape now launches its spores into space. That completes the cycle of the amino acid based carbon chemistry life form. Be sure to tune in next millenium for another exciting edition of Mutual of Andromeda's Wild Universe.

  • To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever sucessfully launched a solar sail of that size. If they manage to get all the way through the development process and actually build something that works for $250M, I will be pretty impressed. NASA has certainly burned through more money with less result [nasa.gov] more than once.

    A working solar sail design would be vastly useful in the development of space resources... after we make access to LEO cheap enough to make the technology relevant .

  • We send out a satellite filled with our DNA and the Kligon Empire uses it for target practice. There goes fifty bucks!
  • What if these aliens are so bright that they take our DNA and clone one of us. NOW we will be able to say geek in space :)
  • and of course for celebrities for the promotional value!

    Just what we need, aliens cloning our boy bands...

  • thats a lot of money (Score:3)

    by adpowers ( 153922 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @04:02PM (#150093)
    4.5 million times 50. Wow, thats $225,000,000. I wonder what their incentives are! Anyway, it does cost a lot to build space crafts so maybe it will mostly be offset by that.
    Andrew
  • "The last thing we should be doing is sending our grotesquely distorted DNA out into space." - George Carlin

  • And if they find it they may use it as target practice, ala Klingons blowing up space junk in Star Trek - Voyage Home.

    Or it comes back to rid the planet of that pesky human infestation... (V'Ger, Star Trek - The Motion Picture)
  • I thought that proteins were the executable.
  • So basically the Human Genome Project is just one big show of reverse engineering? ISn't that against the law in the US????

    ;-)

    tada
  • Everyone will suffer, but the lawyers... hmmm, *must* be hell!!!
    ouch!!
  • Actually I once read a sci-fi story. The basic premise was that the aliens went around taking samples of peoples DNA. Trouble was they were carnivores, but civilised. So, they grew a clone of you, and then... dinner time... everyone was happy. I think.

    So, Hey Alien! Want a sample of MY DNA. I don't think so... You want some, you suck on this! Keep your filthy tentacles off me and my cloned buddies...

    ;-)
  • So you don't mind the idea of people sitting down to Bobo the Space Chimp steak then? Somebody sucking on one of your juicy eyeballs?

    You sure?

    How about you get to meet someone who had eaten your clone the night before and compliments you on your very good flavour?

    These are rhetorical questions BTW ;-)

    It raises some disturbing questions don't you think?

  • So the aliens will... (Score:4)

    by proxima ( 165692 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @04:02PM (#150101)
    So the aliens will get our DNA, ok. They'll clone us, raise a few baby clones, and find out that we're ugly.

    Don't be surprised when a few alien battlecruisers stop by to destroy this planet of ugly humans.

  • Radiation [spacefuture.com] could be problem:
    "
    People on the Earth get an average natural radiation exposure of about 1.7 mSv per year[..]

    [In the Space Shuttle] the worst case[..] 112 times the natural exposure on Earth.
    "

    Near Chernobyl ~ 10 mSv per year.

    --

  • pretty simple, this is either:

    Futile and no-one will find it

    or; dangerous, handing over our DNA to unknown intelligent aliens

  • Nice deal for them (Score:3)

    by loraksus ( 171574 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @04:12PM (#150104) Homepage
    4.5mill*$50
    $225,000,000.

    Methinks that they don't give a shit about sending stuff to aliens, but making a few $ while trying to see whether the solar sail concept really works.

    Lets be, well, understanding that this is the USA and nothing happens if its not for money or personal gain.

    Why was there a link to mission to mars there? I never saw it..

    The slashdot 2 minute between postings limit:
    Pissing off hyper caffineated /.'ers since Spring 2001.

  • Kurt Vonnegut's story "The Big Space Fuck?"

    ...nuff said.
  • The chances of an alien race happening to find this spacecraft are slim to none. It is more likely the space craft will be obliterated by an asteriod or some space rock then happening to fly by some space ship and getting detected by aliens. Lets all admit what this project is all about. Its a way of publicly funding a mission to test the concept a space sail.
  • These guys are being controlled telepathically by the Martians.

    They are doing this to send out a large amount of genetic material out to the Martian/Jovial joint cloning program. They can then clone large amounts of people to smuggle back into the planet so that they can take over the planetary government by infiltrration without bothering to send a space fleet.

    We got problems

    ;-)

    Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip

  • I can think a better use of $50 to insure that your genes get propagated. It's called asking out that cute girl in class, taking her to a fancy restaurant, then knocking her up.

    Aside from the fact that you can't go out on a date at a fancy restaurant for $50 anywhere I know, a baby costs considerably more than $50 to raise.

    Whereas an alien clone costs nothing!
  • How exactly are they extracting that DNA sample again? And how are they getting it into space? I think I saw a Ron Jeremy movie like this years ago.
  • It occurs to me that the concept of using solar sails to deliver anything to an alien species is a bit absurd. Lets think about this for a moment:

    A ships sails catch wind to carry it off, solar sails catch solar wind and carry it off - away from stars. The predominant winds in our solar system will carry the craft out into interstellar space - but then what?

    If it begins to drift towards another star, won't the winds of that star just push it away? Won't this thing just end up in deep space forever far away from any potential civilizations?

  • I can see it now: (Score:3)

    by ConsumedByTV ( 243497 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @04:04PM (#150137) Homepage
    Geeks: "Dont send out DNA into space, aliens will exploit us!"

    Encounter 2001: "That is only theoretical"

    Aliens: "Making the theoretical possible since 2003"


    The Lottery:
  • Humans take rediculous precautions [slashdot.org] to prevent unknown extraterrestial materials infecting us. It is irresponsible and immoral to project the blueprints of our living matter into any possible extraterrestial environment.
  • send my dog's DNA to space? I hope aliens don't mind practical joke.
  • Actually, a solar-sail is planned to power the first inter-stellar probe... by NASA. This thing, should they actually build & launch it, would be sooo cool it beggars belief... /me hunts for URL:

    http://science.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/solar/suess/Inters tellar_Probe/ISP-Intro.html [nasa.gov]

    Check it out!
    --
    "I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"

  • so, if I had a company that offered thgis service, and I collected 4.5 million checks for $50 with included DNS samples, and I didnt launch anything into space, would anyone know the difference? Probably only a few employees, who I'd be able to afford to pay off quite nicely.

    -
  • Weakness in the human genome? Never!

    Why would jesus do that to us?


    -
  • The way I see it, this is the only way to increase the chances that an evil army of me-clones takes over the world.

    -
  • Good idea, but solar panels most likely won't provide sufficient power once it gets out as far as Pioneer 10 is now...

  • Darn, you beat me to it! Definitely like the final rocket launch in The Iron Dream.
  • Maybe even better way to get your genes propagated is to donate sperm. And what makes this option so superior to the other, is that YOU get paid (not laid, though).

  • Which do you think is more likely? (Score:4)

    by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @04:13PM (#150163) Journal

    1) Aliens discover DNA bank probe travelling through space (aka needle in a haystack); or,

    2) Aliens find Earth after having received over 100 years of beacon-like EM communication (radio, tv, etc).

    I know which I think is the more likely scenario. (Hint: even number.)

    A novel gift idea? Maybe. Valuable science? Definitely not.

  • NASA is having problems funding the 'Pluto Express' mission. This could solve the dilemma. They should buy an X-10 camera for $69, pay these guys $3000 to strap it on this thing, and aim it at Pluto. Mission accomplished.
  • The problem with this is that we are giving the evil aliens the blueprints of our species. There is the chance, however unlikely, that they might find a weakness... and exploit it.

  • Re:Oh no! We can't give them that information. (Score:4)

    by 4mn0t1337 ( 446316 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @04:14PM (#150173)
    Uh,... we humans *aren't* OpenSource????

    ______

  • Might be a good idea (Score:4)

    by bartle ( 447377 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @05:04PM (#150174) Homepage

    When I first heard of this, the alien warlord concept was the first thing that popped into my head too. But really, it is far more likely that the probe would be discovered by our descendants than some alien race. In a thousand years the human race will most likely either be dead or colonizing other star systems, if it's the latter then our genetic makeup may have been altered significantly. A probe full of pure DNA samples could provide an interesting biological baseline or at least anthropological study.

    Of course, I'm still not sending them $50. But the concept kind of validates things for those who do.

  • Results from Inital Contact (Score:3)

    by sgt_getraer ( 448034 ) on Thursday June 14, 2001 @04:22PM (#150176) Homepage
    Supreme Commander Vxnor: "Sub commander Rtlof, what are the results from your exploration of the alien spacecraft retrieved from the outer reaches of our solar system?" Commander Rflof: "Sir, our preliminary research found the capsule empty. However, the aliens left behind an assortment of snack food, including protien strands encased in a tasty and crunchy glass tube."
  • Call me a paranoid shizofrenic alienophobic, but I damn won't give some pantsy-ass aliens my DNA.
    If those alien dudes are smart, they'll send back sterile cloned Kenau Reeves or Leonardo DiCaprio lookalikes, and we all know what that'll lead to: no more reproduction.
    I think no species in it's right mind should send the most intimate information about their genetic buildup into space, that's just too naief.



    ---
    Living is a way of life ...
  • After seeing this message I've concluded you're an alien reading my mind!

    Hmm DNA profile linked to your credit card profile... cross referenced against future thought-crimes.

    Maybe CNN meant NSA not NASA? ;)

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