What to bring to colonize a new planet?

In My Humble Opinion
81

This contains some inaccurate information.

Donkeys have been used to pull plows and carts for millennia. So have ponies such as the Shetland variety (which actually are draft animals even if small, pound for pound they’re stronger than larger equines). Are they as strong as a Clydesdale? No, but Clydesdales didn’t exist until the 1600’s. It wasn’t until the last 500-600 years that we created highly specialized breeds.

Oxen are stronger than horses but they move slower and can not travel as far in a given unit of time. Cattle actually can be used as riding animals although as noted they are not as fast as equines. Working cattle need shoes (unless you want to risk messing up their feet, which often means death for the animal) and shoeing cattle is not as easy as shoeing horses as the cattle need to be supported during the procedure as they can’t balance as well on three legs as horses can. Most common practice is a large frame and slings that allow the animal to be lifted and fully supported during shoeing. Contrast this with shoeing a horse, which can be done with the horse standing on its own and the farrier just working with one foot, it’s a lot less involved process.

In antiquity horse breeds tended to be smaller than they became during the late middle ages/Renaissance. They were used for riding, as pack animals, and for pulling carts/chariots. Oxen were for heavier work.

While horses are bred for various purposes training is just as important. You certainly CAN ride a Clydesdale, Percheron, or other large draft breed. There are a few small obstacles like obtaining a properly fitting saddle for such a large horse, and getting yourself up there in the first place. Although draft breeds are not exactly war horses there is a connection between lager European war horses (developed when they needed to carry a knight in armor) and draft horses, in some cases quite close (Percherons used to be used as either). The differences in the end result has more to do with training than genetics (which is not to say genetics has no influence, just not as much as some assume). ALL very large horses are bred to be even-tempered - you don’t want an animal that big and powerful that’s hostile towards its handlers or prone to spook easily. Not all war horses were big, though - Arabians are not a large breed but have been used in war for thousands of years. Quite a few breeds are suitable for either riding or draft work or both - you just have to train the animal to do both which is time-consuming.

Modern horses have become extremely specialized (not quite as bad as dogs, but getting there). IF you are going to bring horses along you want a general-purpose breed that can be used in a variety of ways. Or you might want a pony breed (take less space, need less food, can still work).

I agree that bringing horses is problematic. There is a whole suite of tech that would need to come with them, such as the skills to make harness/saddle/grooming tools, shoes for working animals, and so forth. Bringing cattle with the idea of using them for work as well as meat has the same issues.

82

Well, no - you want the milk cow making milk.

“Oxen” were castrated males (usually) - stronger than cows, more docile than intact bulls.

That said - you CAN harness female cattle to a plow, or use an intact bull as a draft animal. These things are possible and have even occasionally been done (use of intact bulls has been more common in Asia).

Oxen, as I’ve noted, are stronger than horses. They can pull heavier loads. They can also subsist on poorer quality fodder/forage while doing heavier work than horses can (working horses have their diets supplemented with things like oats and other “high quality” foods).

Keeping in mind that Colonial America (1600-1800) was at the time when the truly large and powerful draft breeds were being developed in Europe for heavy draft work oxen were still more commonly in use than horses at the time. (The term “Clydesdale” for a horse breed didn’t appear until the 1820’s, Belgian draft 1880’s, Shire 1870’s - the truly large draft horses were actually a 19th Century phenomena). A lot of the big draft horse breeds simply didn’t exist at the time.

83

We’ve been mining for thousands of years, for far longer than we’ve had anything you’d consider a “machine”. You can do that with virgin deposits.

The real question here is, what level of technology are we aiming for, and is that a realistic goal for such a colony? The higher tech you want to have, the more people you need, to have enough to have the specialization needed to support that tech base. There was a time, the average farmer had almost all the knowledge they needed to run their farms, because that knowledge base was so small. How to make hand tools, how to prepare a field by hand, how to harvest by hand.

We wouldn’t want to fall that far down the technology tree, but we can decide how far we want to aim for. 1000BC? 1AD? 1000AD? 1885AD? Each has its implications for the colony plans.

84

We have.

But we have machines now (like - rock crushers, and drills) Why would we ever go back?

I would say at least as good as today, if not far in advance.

No.

The lower tech you have, the more support people you need. Look at how many people used to work in agriculture. And the absolutely enormous amount of labour it took to make textiles.

85

Nah, everything is made of animals.

86

But a rather slow one. And you need two of them to work as a fabricator, and they must be compatible.

87

Why would square inches matter? Weight probably would matter, but area (or more precisely, volume) is cheap. And yes, a horse does mass more than a human, but you’d need to bring a lot fewer horses than humans. From a quick Google, it looks like a horse could have maybe 15 foals during its life, more or less one per year starting at 4 years: That’s a pretty quick exponential growth. If you land with, say, a dozen four-year-old mares, then five years later, you’d have 24 brood mares, then 36 at six years, 48 at seven years, and so on. If I’m not miscalculating, 15 years after landing, you’d have 51 times your initial adult horse population.

Between the fact that livestock of any given species are basically interchangeable, while humans aren’t, and that any sort of nonhuman livestock can be bred much more quickly than humans, the total mass of livestock needed on your ship will be negligible compared to the needed human population.

88

Every cubic cm for those horses needs to be oxygenated, and pressurized, and temperature-controlled, and radiation-shielded. And that includes space for them to exercise. Those costs add up.

89

Fidget spinner collection. (in three refridgerator-sized crates)

90

Why would you need or even want horses on a spaceship? If you’re on a generation ship traveling for centuries—or even millennia—lugging around live horses is going to be more trouble than it’s worth. They need tons of space and fodder, they’re prone to injury, and they produce enough manure to fill a space barn. Plus you’d have to employ veterinarians and groomers. If you believe your future landing colony absolutely needs horses, then just bring along horse embryos instead. They’re easier to store, don’t need constant care, and won’t turn your interstellar adventure into a cosmic rodeo. Once you’ve found a planet worth settling, thaw out your equine DNA and start fresh.

91

So many of the responses in this thread assume the invention of technologies only currently present in science fiction. What if there never is an artificial womb for growing humans or horses? What if there never is a cornucopia machine? What about a founding colony using only technologies that are currently actually known to be achievable?

92

Well, i think it’s clear that we don’t currently have the technology to colonize another planet. We can’t even get there. So assuming something more than what we have seems reasonable.

It seems crazy to try to bring horses, though.

93

Can the Captain still bring his own saddle though?

94

I mean, if we do have functioning artificial wombs, then it’s a no-brainer: Of course we’d use them, both for humans and livestock. But that’s a big if.

95

I believe we’ll get artificial wombs (ectogenesis) long before we achieve interstellar generation ships. Researchers have already managed to support extremely premature lamb fetuses in a fluid-filled “biobag,” which is like a simplified artificial womb. It’s a step in the right direction.

96

We’ll definitely need a small crew and the equipment to make a documentary of the trip and colonization. Definitely.

How else will we fund the trip?

97

How many subscribers to the YouTube channel will they need?

98

I’ve been assuming tech at current levels (except for whatever the starship engine is, of course). Minimal Fab is a current chip manufacturing technology, for example.

99

Because it’s pretty much impossible with the technologies we have, or know are possible. Being able to store DNA copies of plants and animals, and decant them at the other end, is pretty much a hard requirement of any such effort. We know enough about the complexities of environments to say that we don’t know enough to predict exactly which species will be essential to building a successful colony.

Any attempt to colonize that relies on bringing live animals with us will be fundamentally limited by how many species they can fit on the Ark, and how many will survive decades or centuries of travel. No point in bringing a herd of horses if half way through the journey, they get wiped out by a sudden outbreak of Dead Horses Disease, or what ever.

Plus, again, we don’t know for sure that horses, or even that specific breed of horse, will be optimal for the local conditions we find. If we don’t have the option to choose a completely different animal at the colony end of the trip, we may be damning our colonists to a dead end existence.

I’m of the opinion that no one with any sense would ever even try this kind of colonization until they have these enabling technologies. The journey will take at least decades, and more likely centuries. So a delay of an extra few decades while we figure out these technologies won’t be that bad. And that argument will always be persuasive, for every generation. “Well, it would be cool if we could have done it in our generation, but oh well, I guess our grandkids will get to have the fun. Meanwhile, I’m still living the good life in Ceres!”

So maybe that means we never do it. Fine. But we’ll keep trying. It’s like fusion power today. It’s been the technology of the future for 70 years now, and will continue to be so, because the benefits of finally figuring it out would be so great. Even if it ends up being pie-in-the-sky impossible, we’ll keep trying, because the dreams of the possibilities are worth the money we spend every year.

100

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