Heya! Question for ya: if cryogenic stasis is invented, would it be possible/probable to visit other planets with the intention of terra-forming?
Stellar blog you have here! Thanks for the info!
thank you! that means a lot :)
for those of you who don’t know, cryogenic stasis is the process of freezing the human body and preserving its systems so humans can survive long-term spaceflight. this is not currently possible, but is something people have looked into.
to answer your question, if cryogenic stasis is invented, i think it would definitely be possible. probable, on the other hand, is a different story.
terraforming has been a subject of contention in space ethics for a long time. basically, is it ethical to change another planets geological structure in order to suit our needs? or do we leave it pristine as we previously found it? similarly, what would we do if we terraformed a planet and later found that we had made it uninhabitable for native life that existed there?
in an aerospace residency i was a part of a few weeks ago, we designed a mission to mars, and a part of that was establishing a code of ethics. in our document, we agreed that small scale terraforming is okay, but large scale terraforming (such as altering the atmosphere or significantly altering the geological aspects of mars) should be avoided.
i think many government-funded aerospace companies (nasa, esa, jaxa, etc.) tend to be on the more conservative side with their ethics, and would probably have a code similar to what we designed in our residency. however, some private companies (spacex for example) may have different opinions on this, and might allow large scale terraforming.
basically, i think it’s completely possible (if cryogenic stasis is invented), but the probability depends on what our code of ethics outlines.
