Are biological spacecraft viable?

[Raxmei]

Another problem with bioships is that they stop working when they die, and once you kill them they stay dead. Conventional constructions can be repaired even after taking fatal damage.

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

Another problem with bioships is that they stop working when they die, and once you kill them they stay dead. Conventional constructions can be repaired even after taking fatal damage.

The only use an organic starship would have after death is fertilizer, and scrapping metal ships is more efficient than decomposition.

[Nova Andromeda]

--Darth Wong I'd say this discussion is over since you want me to prove so much thereby limiting me to current science. You seem completely unwilling to speculate about adv. org. tech., but have no problem accepting instellar space travel for the purposes of discussion! I, however, have been talking about what some adv. org. tech. systems might be used for. We don't currently have bio. tech. that can produce metal alloys for instance. Without the research I can't prove it can be done end of story. Then again we don't have interstellar space ships either which this whole discussion was based on!!! Why do you have to turn everything into a fight anyhow?

-Molecular precision:
Copying of DNA is precise down to the atom (I believe there are an average of 6 mistakes when copying the human genome). Metabolic reactions are precise down to the atom. Proteins are precise down to the atom and atom position is so accurate it can differential between different chemical isomers and sodium and potassium ions. There are many other examples of extreme precision at the atomic level.

-Useful processes:
-Biological systems might be used for chemical manufacture. Organisms produce a huge variety of chemicals and can secrete some of them in purified form today. If one could design cells for secretion of specific compounds it would be a way to produce those chemicals from basic compounds such as C02, N2, etc. This alleviate the need for chemical/phamacutical manufacturing plants.
-Organic polymer production. Organism already produce organic polymers such as DNA and protein. If this could be extended to plastics it would alleviate the need for plastic manufacturing plants.
-Biomachines. One might find a use for biomachines like a heart in a starship. If there was a way to grow biomachines and increase their strenght things like a heart could be used instead of their metal/plastic counter parts. The benefit is that you would only need to install the part. You would not need to build it from other parts build in a machineshop or store a vast variety of parts. You only need basic raw materials since everything else can be made using cellular processes found in organisms today.
-Optimized crew count. If bio robots could be designed a bio. ship could grow them as needed instead of just having them around constantly from the get go. Of course, a few crew would be needed on a constant basis. In fact, if the brains could be grown and trained ahead of time they would only need to generate a suitable body.
-Compact manufacture of metal alloys. If metal alloys could be produced by organisms in a manner similar to the growth of pearls the manufacture would be very compact. It would include only the organism itself, attachments to receive materials, and the raw materials. Currently, manufacture of metal alloys require large amounts of space for the machines used to melt the metal, mix it, etc.
-Recycling. There are very few waste products organisms make that can't be used by other organisms. If this fact could be exploited and incorporated into bio. ship. design it could be made self sufficient with only a need for energy input.
-Distributed repair. The cell stocks necessary for growth of the biological systems would be small and could be destributed to a number of places in the ship. The growth areas could easily be multipurpose and smaller ones could be distributed as well. This would make it unlikely the bio. ship would lose its repair systems. In a standard ship there would have to be multiple manufacturing facilities for everything biological ship could grow.


-Nitpicks:
-I could create and recycle a human. I wouldn't need to create a human. I could create an organism whose goals match its purpose. This could include wanting to die after its job was finished (it could even be designed to enjoy its last moments).
-You could create a whole world which supports reproducing humans. So what? A bio. ship would be more compact and one could create multiple numbers of them for every world ship produced.
-Large volumes of waste are generated by growth of bio. systems. You completely ignore the fact this waste can be recycled as soon as it is generated. Thus the volume of waste around at any one time is not great.
-You say a heart is useless in a starship. Perhaps one that requires a metal pump of certain design, but a bioship could be designed to use something like a real heart as a pump instead of a mechanical pump.
-You say lots of microchip could be stored. So what they are still difficult to replace. If an organic brain can be used it should be since it is would be easily reproduced and storage consists of a few microliters of cells and the necessary raw materials. Besides it was only one example to demonstrate that parts beyond the tolerances of bio. manufacture could be substituted with bio. parts.

--In conclusion, you will notice all the usefull processes I have suggested require tech. not currently available. If you are unwilling to consider the possibility of their development in either the futuer or a sci. fi. universe there is absolutely no point to this discussion. It would be like me nuking interstellar travel discussions because we don't have the tech. yet!!! As for Evil Sadistic Bastard's rants they aren't even worth bothering since his strawmen are so blatant. He can beat up that giant space whale of his all he wants. Too bad he doesn't see why my bio. ship wouldn't be a giant space whale.

[SWPIGWANG]

You people have a absurd definition of biological, and even more absurd notions on what it can do. I say biological as in self-replication, so we'll get out of the stupid carbon trap of crap.

I'd never thought I'd face mike in battle, but here I am.

BIOLOGICAL SHIP DOES NOT HAVE TO BE ALL BIOLOGICAL, IT ONLY NEEDS ELEMENTS OF BIOLOGY.

Indeed, an all biological ship would be impossible given our current definition, but dismissing that biological systems could have use is just absurd.

Lets see, your ships all have biological systems in ships.....THEY ARE CALLED CREWMAN.

So because organics are useless, we shouldn't have crewman?

Ah, so when something goes wrong, you must first grow a living being, which is intelligent enough to act as a crewman. This is assuming, of course, that the damage to the system does not happen to hit the system which must grow this being. Then, after several months or years, this being reaches maturity and can start constructing the equipment he will need to perform his job. And then, months later, he will be able to start doing what an ordinary crewman and a machine shop would have been able to do three years earlier, and without the enormous resource requirements of raising a living being. And when it's all done, you can murder the newly created sentient being and dispose of its organic material for future use, so it won't take up space. Wonderful plan.

How about instead of supporting extra crewman and all the systems needed to sustain them for century long missions, we instead support small embaryos and grow a biological system (or crew or whatever) to fix the ship when necessary. Rising a biological system is far cheaper than keeping a crew (another biological system) alive for long periods of time when the need occurs only extreamly rarely.

This is assuming, of course, that the damage to the system does not happen to hit the system which must grow this being.

That is assuming of course, they don't damage your wonderful machine shop instead.

In that case, new crewmembers are produced by finding a mate and fucking her brains out. There's your biotech crew manufacturing system for you.

Not efficient compared to hypothetical systems. Humans are bad in space, and have all the flaws of biological systems and is unoptimalized, with the only advantage of it being already constructed and designed.

Please, show me the biological process that will lay down a titanium alloy. And don't give me this "prove that they can't in the future" bullshit; the burden of proof lies upon he who would claim that some capability exists.

Yes, biology -> human -> machinary -> Titanium

Because a system can't do it in one step doesn't mean it can't do it. Sure I hear your counter: Why not just have machinary pre-fab? Well, given that any starship capable of any speed is going to have a super-aboundance of energy and time(FTL my ass), but extream limits on mass. Given that condition it would be far better to compress the mass of the machine shop to near zero. However to give the ship maximum flexibility in case of extreamly long missions, nano-machinary, which biological system is a sub-set of, that have the maximum flexibility should be used instead of macro-scopic systems. Any macro-scopic system would just have to be build slowly, but since all the design plans can either be stored or generated (with a non/semi-biological computer perhaps), it is possible for such a system to construct basicly anything given enough time. Sure in some ships such time might not be possible, but on ships like solar sails that is floating for hundreds of years, it would optimal. Unlike a machine shop, nano-machinary can recycle waste mass far better given enough time and energy and that would be vital on spaceships.

Also, a biological system can suppliment a machine shop if the shop fails.

And stop wanking off to neutronium armored uber-wedges, since unless you can prove other wise, the spaceships of the future is going to count on every gram of mass and no trillion ton monsters is even going move out of orbit.

Assuming superior precision of biological systems even after gross imprecision of biological systems has already been established and conceded. Do not construct a Wall of Ignorance(TM).

Assuming inferior precision of ALL possible biological systems is not a great one. The design of current biological systems are toward the greatest tolerance to environmental change and not percision, so that comparison is invalid for all possible biological systems. Consider that a human being can still be alive with only half a brain, can your pentium 4 claim that? Also you are assuming the future bio-system is going to rely on current methods of communication, as we can easily enchance it with mechanical systems such as using a sillicon laser to draw grids and such.

Also remember we can grow a system to produce a more accurate system and so on, if necessary.

That's what spare parts are for. Do you realize how much material a living being goes through before it reaches maturity? You could store incredible volumes of spare parts in your ship for the resources necessary to produce one of these vat-grown crewmen of yours.

Given my mass is 65kg (so I'm fat, sue me) I'd think that the amount of raw materials required to upkeep me is no more than 200kg. Assuming a closed system where material is recycled of course, but the fact is that much of the mass required by biological systems are actually used as fuel, and if a non-biological system produces the energy in a directly usable way then the mass required is really pityfully small. In terms of energy, the biological system is extreamly cheap since my notebook in from of me uses far more than my brain so it should not me a limit.

A bit more bulky? Don't make me laugh; bio-supplies degrade rapidly over time, and are metabolized so inefficiently that most of the mass of food intake is shit out as waste.

Who the hell says some weird life form designed for starship use have to eat bread and breath oxygen? We could have a direct current running though it for all we know.

[SWPIGWANG]

Tenth - How does your bioship FIGHT? Does it BITE its opponents to death? Bleed on them? Roll over and play dead? Do you even think ANY organic weapon can compare with a TURBOLASER?

Mass production of janeway porn

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

-Molecular precision:
Copying of DNA is precise down to the atom (I believe there are an average of 6 mistakes when copying the human genome). Metabolic reactions are precise down to the atom. Proteins are precise down to the atom and atom position is so accurate it can differential between different chemical isomers and sodium and potassium ions. There are many other examples of extreme precision at the atomic level.

Which is a further indication of how inefficient biological processes are for building large systems. I am not disagreeing that biological processes are precise (after all, IIRC specific stereoisomers can only be produced through biological means). But putting anything together molecule by molecule when you could forge it from a piece of larger material is simply dumb.

-Useful processes:
-Biological systems might be used for chemical manufacture. Organisms produce a huge variety of chemicals and can secrete some of them in purified form today. If one could design cells for secretion of specific compounds it would be a way to produce those chemicals from basic compounds such as C02, N2, etc. This alleviate the need for chemical/phamacutical manufacturing plants.
-Organic polymer production. Organism already produce organic polymers such as DNA and protein. If this could be extended to plastics it would alleviate the need for plastic manufacturing plants.

-Biomachines. One might find a use for biomachines like a heart in a starship. If there was a way to grow biomachines and increase their strenght things

If there was a way. Concession accepted.

like a heart could be used instead of their metal/plastic counter parts. The benefit is that you would only need to install the part. You would not need to build it from other parts build in a machineshop or store a vast variety of parts.
[q/uote]

And where does the part come from? Grow in place? How long would that take? What kind of pre-existing support sustems would be required?

-Optimized crew count. If bio robots could be designed

Human beings.

a bio. ship could grow them as needed instead of just having them around constantly from the get go.

Again taking almost forever to grow them.

Of course, a few crew would be needed on a constant basis. In fact, if the brains could be grown and trained ahead of time they would only need to generate a suitable body.

And of course it is oh so easy to transfer brains from body to body, notwithstanding contamination issues, letting the wounds heal...

-Compact manufacture of metal alloys. If metal alloys could be produced by organisms in a manner similar to the growth of pearls the manufacture would be very compact. It would include only the organism itself, attachments to receive materials, and the raw materials. Currently, manufacture of metal alloys require large amounts of space for the machines used to melt the metal, mix it, etc.

And these same facilities can mass produce the required alloys, while you have to grow your iron pearls one at a time, unless you had multiple units which would mean <shock horror> a manufacturing plant!
And if you have to disintegrate the metal and then reintegrate it again wouldnm't that take far more time than simply achieving specific heat of fusion and then pouring as needed?

-Recycling. There are very few waste products organisms make that can't be used by other organisms. If this fact could be exploited and incorporated into bio. ship. design it could be made self sufficient with only a need for energy input.

You forget the inefficiency of all biological reactions. Remember that the amount of egesta will ALWAYS decrease because some of it is stored in the organism, or exhaled as CO2 or whatever.

-Distributed repair. The cell stocks necessary for growth of the biological systems would be small and could be destributed to a number of places in the ship. The growth areas could easily be multipurpose and smaller ones could be distributed as well. This would make it unlikely the bio. ship would lose its repair systems.

True. but what happens when the local systems run out of resources?
The affected areas would die before enough materials could be transported in time.

In a standard ship there would have to be multiple manufacturing facilities for everything biological ship could grow.

So now your bioship becomes BOTH a manufacturing plant and a giant yolk sac. Wow.

--In conclusion, you will notice all the usefull processes I have suggested require tech. not currently available. If you are unwilling to consider the possibility of their development in either the futuer or a sci. fi. universe there is absolutely no point to this discussion.

I have considered the implications. And I have found them lacking.

It would be like me nuking interstellar travel discussions because we don't have the tech. yet!!! As for Evil Sadistic Bastard's rants they aren't even worth bothering since his strawmen are so blatant.

Then highlight my strawmen and provide counter-arguments instead of clutching your semen-caked "bio ownz all" idea to yourself.

He can beat up that giant space whale of his all he wants. Too bad he doesn't see why my bio. ship wouldn't be a giant space whale.

And why shouldn't it be? Materials to maintain the ship, materials to maintain the crew, these need space. Big space requirements lead to big ship.
And even if the ship were smaller, it changes NOTHING. The biological problems still stand.

[SWPIGWANG]

Again taking almost forever to grow them.

exponential growth rate, concession accepted.

If given the same near-ideal conditions that a percision machine shop would need to function.

You forget the inefficiency of all biological reactions.

Energy inefficient, not mass inefficient. And that is nothing campared to the energy need to move the ship.

Human beings.

Which can turn out to be as stupid as darkstar.

But putting anything together molecule by molecule when you could forge it from a piece of larger material is simply dumb.

Not all biological system have to rely on molecular construction.

[Nova Andromeda]

--Okay Evil Sadistic Bastard here are just some of your strawmen:
1.

And of course it is oh so easy to transfer brains from body to body, notwithstanding contamination issues, letting the wounds heal...

-The idea is to grow a brain and then when needed the brain would grow a body like a lizard regenerates a tail. Contamination occurs on Earth because we are surrounded by contaminants. We wouldn't have that problem in a sealed ship in space would we?

2.

Twelfth - What happens when an organic component breaks down? Replace it by growing in place? What if the component is vital to the growth of new components? And saying that you "pre-grow" them is basically a concession to abiotic ships' prctice of carrying around spare parts.

-A bio. ship would be disigned with only one or two growth systems even though they are small and easy to stick all over the place? What does a cell normally need to grow ... a solution of basic nutrients and something to drop it into that solution.

3.

Fifteenth - Storage issues. The Katana fleet was left in storage unattended for over thirty years and still worked first time when reactivated by Thrawn. Could a bioship do this? Weather the deep cold and vacuum of space for thirty years and still be ready for use? Could it carry enough biomass for either? While the answers to both may be technically yes, the bioship needs special preparation for this whereas the Dreadnaughts were merely left there after their crews died. Ergo, without crew in attendance and remaining active, a bioship will die and become completely unusable.

--This assumes the bio. ship has a power source vastly inferior to all other sci. fi. power sources and even modern day power sources. Surely, we would not use the latest power source and redesign it for use in a bio. ship. Sticking it in the sun would probably be enough to for it to maintain itself.

4.

Sixteenth - Energy shielding. Rrrrright. As though bioships could project an energy field of sufficient power to provide meaningful protection.

-A bio. ship must use organic materials to project an energy sheild or have vastly inferior power systems? Don't be rediculous.

5.

Eighteenth - Radiation. This is a fact of life in space. How does an organic ship survive high radiation like the upper atmosphere of most planets, which WILL be encountered when going into orbit, or when making landfall? (which is again impossible - see point number 5 in previous post) Radiation would cause catastrophic mutations in an organic ship, leading to eventual death. By contrast a metal vessel can be effectively shielded against radiation, i.e the Space Shuttle.

-A bio. ship would have an organic hull? This one of the worst strawmen. You use the organic system to produce components not as armor!!!

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

--Okay Evil Sadistic Bastard here are just some of your strawmen:
1.

And of course it is oh so easy to transfer brains from body to body, notwithstanding contamination issues, letting the wounds heal...

-The idea is to grow a brain and then when needed the brain would grow a body like a lizard regenerates a tail. Contamination occurs on Earth because we are surrounded by contaminants. We wouldn't have that problem in a sealed ship in space would we?

And when the body's function is done? What happens to it? If you keep it around then there is no point growing as needed - you might as well have them ready from the beginning to instantly react to changes. And if you decompose the biorobot body what about the brain? It needs a lot of blood to maintain neural functionality. What are you going to do about it?

2.

Twelfth - What happens when an organic component breaks down? Replace it by growing in place? What if the component is vital to the growth of new components? And saying that you "pre-grow" them is basically a concession to abiotic ships' prctice of carrying around spare parts.

-A bio. ship would be disigned with only one or two growth systems even though they are small and easy to stick all over the place? What does a cell normally need to grow ... a solution of basic nutrients and something to drop it into that solution.

You think you can grow a highly specialized tissue from ONE CELL? Come off it. Growing an organ requires constant nutrition and heat and a liquid environment. All of that will both take up space and energy and time. Whereas I could have a crew replace a ruined generator in half an hour, you would need months to regrow the same thing and if your ship should be under attack, or similarly disrupted the regenerating organ could be damaged beyond functionality.

3.

Fifteenth - Storage issues. The Katana fleet was left in storage unattended for over thirty years and still worked first time when reactivated by Thrawn. Could a bioship do this? Weather the deep cold and vacuum of space for thirty years and still be ready for use? Could it carry enough biomass for either? While the answers to both may be technically yes, the bioship needs special preparation for this whereas the Dreadnaughts were merely left there after their crews died. Ergo, without crew in attendance and remaining active, a bioship will die and become completely unusable.

--This assumes the bio. ship has a power source vastly inferior to all other sci. fi. power sources and even modern day power sources. Surely, we would not use the latest power source and redesign it for use in a bio. ship. Sticking it in the sun would probably be enough to for it to maintain itself.

And how is any biological power source supposed to outperform even an internal combustion engine? How do you redesign fusion power and redesign it for a bio? As for sticking it in the sun... you are obviously less intelligent than I gave you credit for.

4.

Sixteenth - Energy shielding. Rrrrright. As though bioships could project an energy field of sufficient power to provide meaningful protection.

-A bio. ship must use organic materials to project an energy sheild or have vastly inferior power systems? Don't be rediculous.

False dilemma AND a strawman.

How do you project any kind of shielding without a credible source of electricity? You honestly think bioelectricity is enough to support a shield generator? How would you even build the shield generator int he first place? Oh, wait - you ASSUME the race can do it. Right.

5.

Eighteenth - Radiation. This is a fact of life in space. How does an organic ship survive high radiation like the upper atmosphere of most planets, which WILL be encountered when going into orbit, or when making landfall? (which is again impossible - see point number 5 in previous post) Radiation would cause catastrophic mutations in an organic ship, leading to eventual death. By contrast a metal vessel can be effectively shielded against radiation, i.e the Space Shuttle.

-A bio. ship would have an organic hull? This one of the worst strawmen. You use the organic system to produce components not as armor!!!

And an organic ship does NOT produce organic armor? Who the HELL are you trying to kid? What the FUCK have you been smoking?

And since you couldn't find anything to say about the other 13, I accept your concession on the behalf of intelligence and reason.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The argument is dead, organic ships don't work.

But Mother Nature has produced FAR better technology than man has so far, the most complicated things known are biological organisms. If you think a supercomputer or a camera can rival the brain or human eye then you my friend have a funny outlook on our current tech level.

It reminds me of those who argued when RADAR was made in the '40s that humans had overcome Nature once again until some biologists showed that all the latest RADAR aerials were already pioneered and perfected by bats millions of years ago. The military laughed at these guys and sent them on their way, the fact is that the bats had superior tech, albeit using sound, than we did.

I find that thinking humans have even hoped to rival millions of years of evolution just yet to be arrogant.

Just my 2 cents.

[Vympel]

The military laughed at these guys and sent them on their way, the fact is that the bats had superior tech, albeit using sound, than we did.

I find that thinking humans have even hoped to rival millions of years of evolution just yet to be arrogant.

Just my 2 cents.

Ah but do bats have JSTARS?!

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Another problem:


If you blow a hole through a metal ship, you will kill some of its crew and might hit something important. But if you blow a hole through a bioship it's a lot worse. For one thing, even if the outer hull can survive vaccuum, the inner stuff is going to die. A large section of the ship could be flash frozen or whatever. It would take large amounts of time to regenerate the damage. And during which things like micrometeors and radiation could keep on killing the ship. And there are a lot more vital systems on a organic ship that would result in its "death" then a metal.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

-A bio. ship would have an organic hull? This one of the worst strawmen. You use the organic system to produce components not as armor!!!

And what components can these magical systems produce?

[Admiral Valdemar]

The military laughed at these guys and sent them on their way, the fact is that the bats had superior tech, albeit using sound, than we did.

I find that thinking humans have even hoped to rival millions of years of evolution just yet to be arrogant.

Just my 2 cents.

Ah but do bats have JSTARS?!

Bah, we know Elephants can communicate over hundreds of miles using infrasonics in the ground.

Don't you DARE ask if there is a Hubble version in the Animal Kingdom...

[Warspite]

The argument is dead, organic ships don't work.

But Mother Nature has produced FAR better technology than man has so far, the most complicated things known are biological organisms. If you think a supercomputer or a camera can rival the brain or human eye then you my friend have a funny outlook on our current tech level.

What the...? You're saying that technology is a premise of Nature? You're mixing up concepts, my friend...

Well, nowadays, I can build a camera that seens in the IR spectrum, while a human eye can't, supercomputers can perform paralel computations in the order of Teraflops, granted, a human brain needs to support it's body, and we can account for that, but while a computer can devote it's total power to a computation, a brain cannot, that's why we build computers in the first place!

It reminds me of those who argued when RADAR was made in the '40s that humans had overcome Nature once again until some biologists showed that all the latest RADAR aerials were already pioneered and perfected by bats millions of years ago. The military laughed at these guys and sent them on their way, the fact is that the bats had superior tech, albeit using sound, than we did.

Yes, bats have SONAR for millions of years and, we poor humans only developed RADAR recently, I agree on that, if not for your mixing up two diferent aplications, and since a bat had millions of years of evolution, why is it the bio-SONAR is still short ranged? Why can't diferentiate a non-moving moth from the rocky background where it settles?

Of course, you could argue that the bat doesn't need long range, and the moth would take off as soon as it "saw" the bat, but those are nitpicks. The fact that the radar can see long range, all weather and differentiate certains signals IS a superior technology, don't give us this bio-SONAR is high-tech crap.

I find that thinking humans have even hoped to rival millions of years of evolution just yet to be arrogant.

Just my 2 cents.

Well, those millions of years of evolution haven't been very well spent, since bio-systems are still complex and inefficient in the best use of resources. We design systems totally contrary to Nature's way of doing things.

Bah, we know Elephants can communicate over hundreds of miles using infrasonics in the ground.

Well, at this moment, I'm composing this reply, talking to five different people, watching porn, some movie on the TV, and having lunch...

Can an elephant do so much assorted activities while he's stomping on the ground to check out on the latest news? And there's also the whales right? They found a way to comunicate, and the Humans found another one, more efficient, more fast, more... Technological.

Technology, my friend, is what allow us to be discussing at this moment, we could never do anything like this by Nature's way.

[Sea Skimmer]

The argument is dead, organic ships don't work.

But Mother Nature has produced FAR better technology than man has so far, the most complicated things known are biological organisms. If you think a supercomputer or a camera can rival the brain or human eye then you my friend have a funny outlook on our current tech level.

It reminds me of those who argued when RADAR was made in the '40s that humans had overcome Nature once again until some biologists showed that all the latest RADAR aerials were already pioneered and perfected by bats millions of years ago. The military laughed at these guys and sent them on their way, the fact is that the bats had superior tech, albeit using sound, than we did.

I find that thinking humans have even hoped to rival millions of years of evolution just yet to be arrogant.

Just my 2 cents.

Aside from your inability to figure out the difference between SONAR and RADAR systems, please name a bat, which can classify different types of tanks with a single pulse at fifteen miles range in a rainstorm. How about one that can pick out an aircraft skimming over a city from 250 miles away while moving at 400 knots its self?

[ArmorPierce]

Another problem with bioships is that they stop working when they die, and once you kill them they stay dead. Conventional constructions can be repaired even after taking fatal damage.

The only use an organic starship would have after death is fertilizer, and scrapping metal ships is more efficient than decomposition.

Well... you could also chop them up and feed it to ethiopian children

[Admiral Valdemar]

Aside from your inability to figure out the difference between SONAR and RADAR systems, please name a bat, which can classify different types of tanks with a single pulse at fifteen miles range in a rainstorm. How about one that can pick out an aircraft skimming over a city from 250 miles away while moving at 400 knots its self?

Oh look, SONAR and RADAR use the exact same physics! Wow, golly gee, they both use returning waves of either EM energy or sound energy.

And yes, Bats can and do determine the environment to the point that they can see as well acoustically as we can visually. Can a radar make an image that shows near enough every fine detail only centimetres or metres ahead of you without frying you?

And then there is the fact that this is MILLIONS of years old tech, sorry, you still lose out on being the last race to make it.

[Admiral Valdemar]

What the...? You're saying that technology is a premise of Nature? You're mixing up concepts, my friend...

Well, nowadays, I can build a camera that seens in the IR spectrum, while a human eye can't, supercomputers can perform paralel computations in the order of Teraflops, granted, a human brain needs to support it's body, and we can account for that, but while a computer can devote it's total power to a computation, a brain cannot, that's why we build computers in the first place!

Snakes can see in the IR spectrum too.

And how big is that teraflop computer? How many rooms? How much heat does it make? I am merely saying that we are not as cutting edge as we imagine yet, in time we will produce better stuff, but not yet.

Yes, bats have SONAR for millions of years and, we poor humans only developed RADAR recently, I agree on that, if not for your mixing up two diferent aplications, and since a bat had millions of years of evolution, why is it the bio-SONAR is still short ranged? Why can't diferentiate a non-moving moth from the rocky background where it settles?

Of course, you could argue that the bat doesn't need long range, and the moth would take off as soon as it "saw" the bat, but those are nitpicks. The fact that the radar can see long range, all weather and differentiate certains signals IS a superior technology, don't give us this bio-SONAR is high-tech crap.

Yes, I used SONAR and RADAR together because they are the same principle but using different mediums (read The Blind Watchmaker for a damn good explanation on all this, Dawkins uses RADAR and SONAR interchangeably even though we all know bats use SONAR).

The Bat does not need SONAR that sees hundreds of miles unless it flew supersonic or went after a zonking big moth the size of a battleship. You forget, Nature evolves what it needs, a bat does not need to read Braille and 5,000 metres. Regardless, the system works with the bat to the extent that it can see a full image as well as we could visually only using sound, the fact that the bat sends out 200 pulses a second and has a brain to decipher all this info speaks volumes, just look at the size of a bat and then an ultrasound or RADAR scanner.

Well, those millions of years of evolution haven't been very well spent, since bio-systems are still complex and inefficient in the best use of resources. We design systems totally contrary to Nature's way of doing things.

Yet life still exists and breeds well? You cannot say Nature is a shit engineer when we ourselves steal such ideas all the time, it isn’t perfect, but then show me a computer or car that doesn’t breakdown or produce excessive heat.

Well, at this moment, I'm composing this reply, talking to five different people, watching porn, some movie on the TV, and having lunch...

Can an elephant do so much assorted activities while he's stomping on the ground to check out on the latest news? And there's also the whales right? They found a way to comunicate, and the Humans found another one, more efficient, more fast, more... Technological.

Technology, my friend, is what allow us to be discussing at this moment, we could never do anything like this by Nature's way.

Yes, and how are you seeing those images? Were you born into this world with a 12x zoom SPR camera outfitted into your skull by Kodak? How did we create such great tech? Could it not be down to our brains and how we developed them to the point that we could understand our world and make tools to aid us?

Technology is good, but we can’t even make decent working artificial limbs yet which rival Nature’s “inefficient” systems.

[Admiral Valdemar]

It must be said that a lot of people are bringing fallacies into this argument (this argument not being about a stupid organic spaceship which only sci-fi could come up with).

Fine, so a bat can't determine if a tank 200 miles away is a T-90 or a Leopard II, guess what? A bat don't give a shit about tank warfare, they don't NEED to fight tanks.

Next you'll be asking why Cobras don't use TOW2 to catch mice.

Nature has done pretty damn well, look in the mirror and say otherwise. And you all forget, without Nature non of you would be here typing on PCs which OUR brains made up. Nature gave us our brains, we didn't evolve them through tech.

Think about it.

[Nova Andromeda]

--Evil Sadistic Bastard you so damned STUPID it boggles the mind!!!!

--"You think you can grow a highly specialized tissue from ONE CELL? Come off it."
-We all come from just ONE cell you idiot! It is called a fertalized egg!!!

--"And how is any biological power source supposed to outperform even an internal combustion engine? How do you redesign fusion power and redesign it for a bio?
-GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK HEAD YOU MORON!!! A BIO. SHIP ISN'T GOING TO USE ORGANIC POWER SYSTEMS, ARMOR, BULK HEADS, ETC WHERE OTHER MATERIALS ARE NEEDED!!!! One would use metal alloys, ceramics, carbon composits, plastics, etc. just like we would today. The difference is that the bio. ship would be designed to grow as much as possible directly. If it can't be grown directly then the bio. ship would grow specific workers and/or carbon based tools to build it. If that means growing workers and tools to build a machine shop to build a new armor plate so be it. If you can't figure out why this type of fexability is useful far from base on long voyages too bad for you.

--"As for sticking it in the sun... you are obviously less intelligent than I gave you credit for."
-You were talking about STORAGE! If a bio. ship is just going to sit around it would only need a very small amount of power to maintain itself!!! The amount of sun light found on Earth would probably be enough. Let me quess ... you were so eager to fight you assummed I meant stick it in the middle of the sun right! If I told you to stick your plant in the sun would you launch it in a rocket toward the sun?!?

--"`A bio. ship must use organic materials to project an energy sheild or have vastly inferior power systems? Don't be rediculous.' False dilemma AND a strawman. How do you project any kind of shielding without a credible source of electricity? You honestly think bioelectricity is enough to support a shield generator? How would you even build the shield generator int he first place? Oh, wait - you ASSUME the race can do it. Right."
-LET ME SAY IT AGAIN, NOT THAT YOUR PATHETIC MIND CAN GRASP THE CONCEPT: A BIO. SHIP ISN'T GOING TO USE ORGANIC POWER SYSTEMS, ARMOR, BULK HEADS, ETC WHERE OTHER MATERIALS ARE NEEDED!!!! This riduculous idea that a bio. ship has to use organic parts for everything is truly retarded. BTW, how are you going to build your sheild generator anyhow? Let me guess ... you are going to use some imaginary tech. you're mastubating to right now...

--"And an organic ship does NOT produce organic armor? Who the HELL are you trying to kid? What the FUCK have you been smoking?
And since you couldn't find anything to say about the other 13, I accept your concession on the behalf of intelligence and reason."
-So you think I should waste time on all your idiotic ideas because ...? SCREW THAT SHIT!!! You just keep masturbating to the thought of a fictioinal ISD shooting a space whale which is limited to today's real life tech. I've wasted far too much time on you....

[aerius]

Well, those millions of years of evolution haven't been very well spent, since bio-systems are still complex and inefficient in the best use of resources. We design systems totally contrary to Nature's way of doing things.

Yet life still exists and breeds well? You cannot say Nature is a shit engineer when we ourselves steal such ideas all the time, it isn’t perfect, but then show me a computer or car that doesn’t breakdown or produce excessive heat.

Show me a living organism that doesn't get tired or sick, and that doesn't have mood swings or gets infected by viruses or other pathogens. Did I mention cancer and other genetic mutations and defects that can cripple living organism?

[Warspite]

Admiral Valdemar:

Look, you're going through a very circuitous path of logic here. You're comparing biological evolution with a technological implementation.
Yes, bats can process sonar in their brains, and yes, radar needs to be processed in our brains... There! See? Notice the diference?
I don't, except that radar has different (more powerfull) capabilities, and has been around for less than 100 years. IR? the same thing...

What I'm getting at is:
Through biological evolution for millions of years, a biological system (bat) developed a sonar for it's survival, on a set of very stringent specifications. Through technological evolution for less then five hundred years, a biological system (human) developed the radar for it's intentions, with an almost continuous expanding capability since then.
We developed a technical solution to a specific impairment of our race, that has limitless potential, while the poor bat is still hunting for bugs.
The capacities of the bat's sonar are compatible with it's size, so are the capacities of radar.

You can't mix the words Technology and Biology for the same things.

Let's pull the Trekkie 25,000 year fallacy, shall we? Then, yeah, I can have a computer the size of my brain with a much bigger capacity, but it still is in less time then the whole Human evolution.

Yes, biological systems are complicated, we are all alive and well, and maybe I used the wrong terms to explain my ideia, but it all ends in the following question: why go for a complicated system, when we can make a less complicated one?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Yet life still exists and breeds well? You cannot say Nature is a shit engineer when we ourselves steal such ideas all the time, it isn’t perfect, but then show me a computer or car that doesn’t breakdown or produce excessive heat.

Show me a living organism that doesn't get tired or sick, and that doesn't have mood swings or gets infected by viruses or other pathogens. Did I mention cancer and other genetic mutations and defects that can cripple living organism?

Well likewise. Organisms and stress can affect machines too y'know.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Admiral Valdemar:

Look, you're going through a very circuitous path of logic here. You're comparing biological evolution with a technological implementation.
Yes, bats can process sonar in their brains, and yes, radar needs to be processed in our brains... There! See? Notice the diference?
I don't, except that radar has different (more powerfull) capabilities, and has been around for less than 100 years. IR? the same thing...

What I'm getting at is:
Through biological evolution for millions of years, a biological system (bat) developed a sonar for it's survival, on a set of very stringent specifications. Through technological evolution for less then five hundred years, a biological system (human) developed the radar for it's intentions, with an almost continuous expanding capability since then.
We developed a technical solution to a specific impairment of our race, that has limitless potential, while the poor bat is still hunting for bugs.
The capacities of the bat's sonar are compatible with it's size, so are the capacities of radar.

You can't mix the words Technology and Biology for the same things.

Let's pull the Trekkie 25,000 year fallacy, shall we? Then, yeah, I can have a computer the size of my brain with a much bigger capacity, but it still is in less time then the whole Human evolution.

Yes, biological systems are complicated, we are all alive and well, and maybe I used the wrong terms to explain my ideia, but it all ends in the following question: why go for a complicated system, when we can make a less complicated one?

I was merely referring to the biological aspects of the technology, it is not meant to be a technology vs. natural evolution debate because obviously we can't reproduce the eye now nor can nature make hippoes with wheels and not legs.

I just don't like people saying Nature is obviously inferior for not achieving goals that it never set out to accomplish, that's all.