{"id":2548,"date":"2020-07-26T18:21:44","date_gmt":"2020-07-26T18:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/?p=2548"},"modified":"2021-01-03T17:50:08","modified_gmt":"2021-01-03T17:50:08","slug":"designer-astronauts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/?p=2548","title":{"rendered":"Designer Astronauts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"SALWITAY - Designer Astronauts\" width=\"695\" height=\"391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/75LR5njlfE8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption>FMA Denied Science Extractor &#8211; High-speed multi-environment science platform with active defense, camouflage, and evasion measures. Designed to address the challenges of collecting data in areas where indigenous populations are hostile to the interest of science. All armaments are optimized for non-lethality, but occupant safety and mission execution is prioritized. Shielding is capable of resisting direct attacks from all kinetic, explosive, and small nuclear weapons that an early technological culture might deploy against it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Earth spent a lot of time developing a buffet of potentially useful biological structures. For the most part that buffet was designed for Earthlike conditions, which are very different from space. But Earth isn\u2019t all cozy, it\u2019s got some seriously extreme places and lots of just plain weird ones, and life squeezed into pretty much all of them and figured out ways to be life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if we wanted to set out to design a being to exist in space, a more perfect astronaut, Earth might be a good place to look for features we\u2019d like to emulate. Also it\u2019s the home of every being we\u2019ve ever known, so it\u2019s really the only references we have for beings. So let\u2019s design a better astronaut from the resources available on Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our astronaut should be intellectually as capable as us, but physically enriched and optimized to exist in space using features available from Earth\u2019s biosphere. And by \u2018existing in space\u2019 I\u2019m not thinking naked void exactly, but also not brain-in-a-jar level encapsulation. I\u2019m aiming for some balance between a body that\u2019s robust to life in space but also optimized to create and manipulate technology needed to live and do interesting work there. It\u2019s hard not to use humans as a template because we really are objectively well suited as engineers with our thumbs and bipedalism and all that. But we\u2019re best suited for engineering on Earth and I\u2019m trying to adapt that same idea to space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are two fun copout answers I\u2019d like to get out of the way. First is just tardigrades aka water bears. They\u2019re already pretty well adapted to space, and I\u2019m cynical enough about human intelligence to say they\u2019re within an order of magnitude of humans on the scale of what\u2019s probably out there. Kind of a joke but tardigrade DNA definitely has some impressive features. But I\u2019m going to do more of an organ\\limb level assembly, not cellular, except when it\u2019s convenient or funny I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other cop out answer is just engineer a creature sort of like the encyclopod in Futurama that just already has all the DNA of Earth encoded and can swap out features as needed. That would be the literal zenith of biological evolution- a creature that could consciously command its own genetic change on a biological level and maintain a seamless experience. Of course a lab full of geneticists that experiment on themselves might be effectively the same thing- but I like the idea of a more elegant sort of shapeshifter being that can do it with style. That\u2019s kind of nonsense, but what isn\u2019t, but it\u2019s also just not what I\u2019m doing right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is about an astronaut we might plausibly build from Earth\u2019s biology, if it was plausible to just slap together features into an astronaut. It\u2019s not plausible, but it\u2019s more so than the encyclopod shapeshifter thing, and that\u2019s just what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, so maybe we start with a base platform animal. Obviously the nervous system and brain is crucial to this thing being able to do astronaut things so we kind of have to stick to high order mammals. But most of those are heavily adapted for leg and walking, which isn\u2019t super relevant in space. I\u2019m leaning towards starting with a smallish dolphin body. Give it some thick ape skin or something so it doesn\u2019t dry out because we\u2019re not hauling all that water mass around for habitats. A dolphin body could be modified to support something like a human brain and have a lot of the infrastructure in place already but no unnecessary limbs, you can just start adding what you need like Mr Potato Head. Also their oxygen demands seem a lot more flexible already. It\u2019s tempting to look to photosynthesis or some entirely different energy generation mechanism, but it\u2019s a lot longer road to how that could ever feed the demands of a mammalian brain, and I want to start somewhere more fun and a basic mammal platform does a lot of the work for me.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And as impressive as human omnivorousness is, it\u2019s not all that useful when you produce all your nutrition in a closed loop anyway. So it\u2019s probably easier to start with something with a simpler digestive system, which it seems like dolphins have with all the fish, but I don\u2019t really know. I\u2019m guessing they could run on a homogenous protein slurry that would be easier to synthesize than a balanced human diet. Then again they might need some complex vitamins that fish have that I\u2019m not accounting for. And though echolocation would be of limited use in space, it seems like the neural processing structures could be useful for some other sense organs so may as well keep those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that\u2019s our platform- imagine a stumpy dolphin torso with ape skin, no fins, just a tapered tube with input and output holes. Has an identifiable front, back, top, and bottom, but other than that just a digestive system with a brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So obviously we have to start by adding what we need from humans to make this thing an astronaut. Seems like there\u2019s a lot of territory to cover given how many advantages we have on Earth, but I\u2019m actually thinking just the brain. Everything else we do can be done with other animal\u2019s parts, maybe a lot better. So that\u2019s all the humanity we\u2019re going to need from homo sapiens, just a gross, wrinkly, mushy, brain, maybe even just the outer layers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those hands were pretty useful though, gotta figure out something with extremely fine dexterity but still pretty strong for their size. I want to say tentacles but those are pretty demanding to control and I\u2019m not sure a more under articulated but rigid structure couldn\u2019t do a better job. But tentacles do have a lot of great sensory use, so hard to ignore them. Do we need bones? Okay- so I could spend all day on the possibilities for manipulators to replace the human hand. And honestly there are so many possibilities there might not be a truly optimum configuration, so I\u2019m just going to put one together that I like, and leave it at that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s going to be two muscular \u2018trunks\u2019 similar to but smaller than an elephant\u2019s, each terminating in a 3-fingered \u2018hand\u2019 consisting of tentacled fingers, and a claw extending from the wrist on one arm. The claw is modelled on the function of a Mantis shrimp\u2019s powerful smasher claw. Not really a defensive feature, but can produce extreme force on a small area, so seems like it could be useful for a lot of situations in space. Also dangerous as hell, but hey- you\u2019re in space. The trunk has a bone structure of interconnected ball-socket joints capable of moving freely, or being locked in a straight configuration with a twisting mechanism at each joint when more leverage is needed. That last part isn\u2019t in nature to my knowledge, but I figure we can modify bone\u2019s mechanical function somewhat. I\u2019m tempted to pack a bunch of extra cool sensors on those manipulator limbs, but I think that brings the danger of damaging them, so I\u2019m inclined to leave the manipulators as touch sensors only just like human hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We obviously don\u2019t need feet or legs, but we do have to get around somehow. So we\u2019ll need to either grab and push off stuff, or be able to move enough air to propel ourselves around. We already have manipulators, but I think we need to keep those free for work, so we should probably have another push\\grab\\anchor limb. Seems like a one-legged bird could do most of that, so let\u2019s use one of those for a third limb, two seems unnecessary. Birds also have wings we could use to propel ourselves, but that\u2019s massive overkill in 0 gravity. I would like some thrust potential though. So let\u2019s give it a kind of kangaroo pouch that it can pull inside-out and hold tight with its manipulator limbs and flap it to generate directional thrust. Also having a pouch seems handy, maybe we\u2019ll do a couple of those like side pockets and the \u2018hands can pull out each one and use them like webbed gloves sewn onto their hips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So now we have a dolphin stump with ape skin, two crazy trunks with claw\\tentacle hands, one bird leg, and hideous skin sacks it can pull out to move air. That\u2019s a good start I think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The front of the dolphin is just a food intake orifice. But of course we need sensors. If you\u2019ve listened to many of these essays you might know what\u2019s coming next. Articulated eye stalks. I did a thing on how awesome those are and why so I won\u2019t go into it here, but that\u2019s going to be the primary vision and audio sensory apparatus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t want to stop at the usual five human senses though. That seems like where we can really maximize the potential that evolution gave us.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve already brought up mantis shrimp, but they have a lot of great features to borrow. We\u2019re going to pretty much steal their entire optical system. All the advantages of the stalks, plus the hyperspectral range, the polarization filtering, and anything else they have that we haven\u2019t figured out or I don\u2019t know about. Just copy\\paste the entire \u2018eye\u2019 folder from their DNA, plus all the drivers and apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want to push that hyperspectral range even further, so we\u2019re going to throw in some pit viper DNA to be able to sense thermal radiation. Might be hard to integrate those on the stalks through so we\u2019ll just have one big heat sensing region between where the eyes were before we put them on stalks.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ears are a tough call- I want maximum range of pressure and vibration sensing, but I also want a robust structure that won\u2019t pop easily in changing pressures. There\u2019s a lot to choose from, but I figure there\u2019s got to be a way to combine the best of a bat and a whale to allow sensing from extremely low to extremely high frequency vibrations. And whatever that sensory organ is- put it in a fatty cone thing with a sphincter that can close up entirely to protect it when pressures get too high. Yeah- I\u2019m kind of phoning in the ears. I don\u2019t know that we even need them, but I can\u2019t reason out why we don\u2019t exactly so I\u2019m just winging it. I think we only need one ear though. Localizing sound probably isn\u2019t as critical in space habitats. So that goes next to the heat sensor thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chemical senses always seem useful, but that\u2019s from our experience with humans in space with technology we\u2019re just figuring out made of materials we barely understand that interact with our bodies in ways we can\u2019t predict. I\u2019m thinking once we\u2019ve mastered technology to the point that we\u2019re building astronaut bodies and closed loop environments for them to live in, maybe they won\u2019t have as much of a need to smell when things might be burning. I might be creating a huge problem for future space travellers, but I\u2019m going to say let\u2019s just forgo biological chemical sensors altogether. If they can\u2019t build technology they need to survive that doesn\u2019t include its own failure sensors, they\u2019re not going to last long anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Foregoing chemical senses does simplify things, but it also seems a tragic waste of the rich variety of available biological chemical sensing mechanisms, but a lot of that is only advantageous in a complex, dynamic, and unpredictable chemical environment, which a space habitat should be anything but. So no more noses, kind of sucks, also some conveniences to an absence of smell in a closed environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So now our astro-freak can make energy from food and oxygen, move about in zero gravity, manipulate objects, and sense a useful range of radiation and vibrations. What else can we use?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Probably could use some kind of advanced rotational orientation mechanism, but I think most of those are designed for gravity, so I\u2019m thinking that might just have to be adapted from the vision system. Vision is going to be pretty important though so I\u2019m tempted to beef that up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Apparently squid skin has some light detection ability. I\u2019m going to propose it could be adapted for orientation and movement tracking independent of the primary vision system. If the skin itself can be a wide field, low resolution camera- it can use it as a reference to track its motion fairly efficiently. As long as the light field in an area is consistent or the cyclical changes can be predicted, once the being has a good light field map it can correlate its orientation in that field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s all the sensory bonuses I can think of right now, there\u2019s probably more, but as much variety as there is on Earth, it\u2019s sensory focus is kind of limited. I\u2019d love to include radio reception but can\u2019t find a radio shack in nature. Oh\u2026 actually we should toss in magnetic sense if we can. Apparently even humans have proteins that can respond to magnetic fields, but no nervous infrastructure to detect those changes. So not sure on the specifics, but some way to detect magnetic fields would probably have some use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From there it\u2019s just miscellaneous tools. I could think of interesting things we could do with a spider\u2019s silk gland, or something with a bombardier beetle\u2019s defenses for a biological thruster, but it isn\u2019t anything we couldn\u2019t make into a separate technology. Of course the extreme end of that gets us back to the brain-in-a-jar solution, but I\u2019m still using human success as engineers on Earth as a template.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Though there is one step towards the brain-in-a-jar that makes sense even if you really don\u2019t want to go there. Might as well accept that in a lot of ways the astronaut\u2019s modified body is just a biological brain-in-a-jar, so let\u2019s add a screw-on lid so we don\u2019t have to crack the jar to adjust the fluid levels. Add some kind of \u2018bio-interface ports\u2019 that allow sampling or transfer of some critical biological materials. Maybe one for blood, one for spinal fluid, one digestive, etc. Maybe just a thick membrane with a skin flap cover with no nerve endings to generate pain. Something like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So let\u2019s see what we\u2019ve got. It\u2019s a stumpy dolphin body with ape skin that is also light sensing somehow, two trunk\\claw\\tentacles appendages, one bird leg, invertible pockets that double as hand webbings for flapping propulsion, a central thermal and pressure vibration sensing area on its head. Articulated eyestalks with all the capability of a mantis shrimp\u2019s vision system. No nose. Maybe some magnetic sense ability. And a bio port.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I intentionally left out reproduction because these things are clearly already dead sexy and don\u2019t need any help in that department. Actually I\u2019m just thinking once you\u2019re intentionally and successfully swapping out entire body parts via DNA to maximize function it doesn\u2019t make much sense to start shuffling code with biological reproduction again. Self-cloning might have a place, but I figure just use the machine that made you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I forgot about speech, but- I\u2019m not sure we need that even. Of course language is necessary, but spoken words- well, I\u2019m torn. Audio does have great \u2018broadcast\u2019 features, but how much do you need to broadcast in a space habitat? Just seems like a visual communication system is far more effective. You can still take advantage of the sound\u2019s &#8216;broadcast\u2019 abilities by just banging on something or farting to get people\u2019s attention or convey simple ideas, then when you have their attention and need to get specific use a visual language. Between those trunk hands and the articulated eyestalks their sign-language could be every bit as rich and as wide a bandwidth as vocal communication if not far more. And there\u2019s always writing and drawing pictures and symbols.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Actually I\u2019ve thought a lot about communication in space and really what you want is redundancy. I think future astronauts should be able to communicate effectively by sign, touch sign, semaphore language, morse code, and probably some other stuff I haven\u2019t thought of. The idea is to allow communication through every conceivable medium or complication that astronauts might have a need to communicate through. But that\u2019s another conversation, this is about bioengineering astronauts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or it was about bioengineering astronauts, since I think I\u2019m about done. I might come back later and play with the spider silk gland idea and stuff like that. But as far as designing a biological astronaut using Earth biology that\u2019s functionally as well advantaged for space as humans are for Earth, but without starting from the cellular level, this is what I got. I personally think our freakish dolphin monster is quite adorable in its own way, but I\u2019m a little biased.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earth spent a lot of time developing a buffet of potentially useful biological structures. For the most part that buffet was designed for Earthlike conditions, which are very different from space. But Earth isn\u2019t all cozy, it\u2019s got some seriously extreme places and lots of just plain weird ones, and life squeezed into pretty much <a href='http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/?p=2548' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2549,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548\/revisions\/2549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}