[quote]
from Tuckerfan
Originally posted by scr4
Don’t we have the technology for long-term storage of sperm and ova? You can carry a fairly large selection of genes that way.
That we do, but still, how many folks are we gonna need? After all, when the ship arrives, you’re not going to want half the population to be infants or sitting around in storage, waiting to be implanted in a womb. So whilst we can carry millions of sperm and egg, we’re still gonna need a certain number of fleshy humans as well.
Originally posted by BioHazard
I don’t think the Initial population really needs to be very big. I would say maybe 10 males and 50 females, from as many different ethnic populations and different parts of the world as possible (the females are more important in this case IMHO). A male is assigned … (etc., directed-breeding program)
That’s a lot of “control” over an initmate part of people’s lives. I can’t really see folks agreeing to that, or it lasting for very long, …
[quote]
Hmmm…
Let’s assume this SF scenario:
First, of course, that there will be the technological development to build WHATEVER is a generation-ship that can handle multicenturial or multimillennial deep-space manned travel with high reliability and safety.
Assume also that a few hundred more years of development of reproductive technology, lead to the development of (a) foolproof birth-control (b) reliable long-term conservarion of reproductive nuclei © reliable and safe artificial conception and (b) reliable and safe artificial wombs.
Hypothetical assumptions established, then,
Then we could build a long-term generation-ship that is really a moving O’Neill colony, with an “initial population” in the low thousands, like the crew of a large naval vessel or the population of a small town – and at least half again and maybe twice as many as absolutely necessary to run the operation, just to be on the safe side. Let the ship have the carrying capacity for a society at least twice as large again as the original crew, to accommodate for fluctuations in population, and more than that in terms of “idle space” to let people have some private time. That’s right, considerations of “tight efficiency” would have to go out the window if you want people to live their whole lives inside the vehicle.
.
Then:
The ship can carry a “stock” of ova/sperm from maybe hundreds of thousands different people of each sex, NOT related to the crew.
During flight, you establish a strict population policy that still allows for natural reproduction and couple-forming but keeps the total birthrate at less than replacement levels…
…and periodically “replenish” the population with children born out of the “gene stock”, shuffling the ova/sperm, by implantation in willing mothers or else by using the auto-wombs and being “fostered” or given in adoption to the extant crew who may want children above the aforementioned limits. The ‘foster children’ would get a confidential consanguinity record in their medical chart to avoid potential incestuous situations when/if they decided to reproduce. That way you keep periodically inserting fresh genes into the mix AND maintain a population appropriate for the carrying out of the mission.
Once you get wherever you want to get, and establish a viable colony, you then keep bringing genetic material out of “stock” to let the population grow to whatever is the carrying capacity of the location.
Yes, it DOES require you to essentially create a society with a distinct set of values; such as use of birth control being the default behavior; acceptance of birth limits; non-stigma to unidentifiable paternity and willingness to accept children “not of your blood”; if there is a difference between the number of “replenishment” births and the number of willing adoptive/surrogate/foster parents, a disposition towards communal raising. That I am also giving us a few hundred years to work on.