Are biological spacecraft viable?

[Peregrin Toker]

Just a question: Can an organism actually survive exposure to the vacuum of space??

[Admiral Valdemar]

Just a question: Can an organism actually survive exposure to the vacuum of space??

Nope.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Just a question: Can an organism actually survive exposure to the vacuum of space??

Well let's see. The vaccuum alone would probably damage/kill the 'hull'. And radiation from even a star could be deadly. And so could space dust.

[Admiral Valdemar]

No need to go into space so no organism has ever evolved to.

[Larz]

Ever put a marshmellow in vacume?... apply that to a cell. You would have to design the cells to exist in presureless vacume, else they would pop (also think balloon in vacume)

Edit: on this note I saw something about nano-repairs. For repairing chunks of blown away hull, nanites would be worthless. Their use would be better put to maintaining computer components and other small things.

Their is no real advantage period to having organic anything on a ship except for maybe a brain. To maintain the health of the vessel, all the factors that could damage cells to start reproducing bad cells, and the plain pointless nature of such a ship (even if it is just the interior, why? Power, propulsion, weapons mount, and nice interior are all easily attained by metallic vessels).

Something else though might by machines that are based off of organic beings (metallic muscles and such). Though I'm not sure how this could be of any use either.

[Exonerate]

Going where no organism has ever gone before

[Nova Andromeda]

Bio-organisms have never demonstrated the ability to make anything but themselves, and bio- organisms have specific characteristics which make them unsuitable.

--This is why you have a whole stock of different organism designed to produced specific things. In addition, cellular signalling could be used to customize certain things within any one organism.

And biotech can only produce crude stuff period.

--So humans are crude and totally worthless huh? One problem with having only machine shops is you need people to use them. A bioship could simply build people or organic robots which could then be used to make macro repairs and use the machine shops or whatever else you needed them for. You are unfairly limiting the usefullness of biotech. Geeze use your imagination. The ability to grow something like biorobot means you can start off with very general/basic tools and build up to very sophisticated things. A machine shop doesn't have this level of usefulness.

You do realize bacteria perform all sorts of exotic chemical reactions involving metals very efficiently don't you?

Only with types of metals which happen to be suitable for that purpose ...

--Actually, the metal is normally "choosen" based on its chemical properties and used to do other exotic chemistry. That doesn't mean there aren't ways of performing a great variety of metal chemistry using organisms. Though, perhaps it cannot be used to make bulk metals (I don't know much about metal microstructure). I was thinking it might improve the type of alloy you could make by being able to control the deposition of metal atoms and element concentration exactly.

They communicate, but not in the sense that long-range dimensional alignment and group co-ordination becomes possible.

--Yet the tolerances are good enough to build a human. If you truly need high tolerances you could grow a human or a less intelligent organism and send it off to the machine shop. However, I seriously doubt extreme toleraces are needed for the majority of ship components.

Liquid metal and plastic also conforms to a given space. It's called "casting and moulding", and it happens in seconds, not months.

--Neither of these is useful if you want to replace a complex part like a kidney. You could just attaching a pregrown part and then let it fit itself in place by stimulating it with an appropriate chemical.

Therefore, you are attempting to use biological organisms to manufacture machine components, microchips, and other technological devices which do NOT function despite loose tolerances.

--You are restricting yourself far too much by trying build stuff from cells that should be built by cells. Some of these things can be replaced by organic versions such as microchips. The visual processing centers in my brain are actually quite powerful and yet designed for a specific task. I see no reason a microchip couldn't be replaced by something like that. For other things in which there are not organic equivalents an organic ship can grow organic robots (at least as complex as a human) and then manufacture those parts in a machineshop or any number of other facilities that could be generated once an organic robot is produced and given access to some tools.

[Darth Wong]

--So humans are crude and totally worthless huh?

On a starship? Absolutely. They're the pilots, but their mechanical and physical abilities are indeed utterly worthless.

One problem with having only machine shops is you need people to use them. A bioship could simply build people or organic robots which could then be used to make macro repairs and use the machine shops or whatever else you needed them for.

So, in other words, instead of using system A to produce something, you use system B to produce operator C which can in turn operate system A to produce something. Congratulations.

A machine shop doesn't have this level of usefulness.

No, it has far more usefulness, since it gets the job done without the pointless extra steps.

If you must build an organism to operate machinery, then you have conceded the utter uselessness of your process. You still need the machinery, and all you're doing is growing a crew for the ship, when it would be much simpler to recruit one and skip this ridiculous crew-manufacturing system of yours.

--Actually, the metal is normally "choosen" based on its chemical properties and used to do other exotic chemistry.

That's the whole point; you are forced to choose metals based on their suitability to the process, rather than choosing the process based on its suitability to the desired product. Tail wagging the dog.

I was thinking it might improve the type of alloy you could make by being able to control the deposition of metal atoms and element concentration exactly.

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).

The scales on which modern computers already operate is much smaller than the size of biological cells. They cannot operate on an atom by atom basis, so forget this silly idea.

--Yet the tolerances are good enough to build a human.

Which doesn't even have two arm lengths within 1/4" of each other on average. That's simply pathetic.

Liquid metal and plastic also conforms to a given space. It's called "casting and moulding", and it happens in seconds, not months.

--Neither of these is useful if you want to replace a complex part like a kidney.

There you go again, touting the ability of biotech to make bio-products (which no one is disputing) and then implying that this also means it can make mechanical products. Stop using B to prove A.

--You are restricting yourself far too much by trying build stuff from cells that should be built by cells. Some of these things can be replaced by organic versions such as microchips.

Please, by all means, show us these biological microchips. Let's put this in perspective, shall we? Microchips are made on a 0.13 micron process TODAY. Human blood cells measure roughly 7.5 microns wide. And you think big fat cells will make superior microchips in the future because ... ?

The visual processing centers in my brain are actually quite powerful and yet designed for a specific task.

They are totally inferior to any decent artificial optical system, and they were not designed at all.

I see no reason a microchip couldn't be replaced by something like that.

Size, weight, speed, inaccuracy, variability, complexity of supply requirements, etc. all favour the artificial microchip.

[aerius]

You can take a tube of Aermet 100 (high strength steel used in aerospace applications) that's about 28mm in diameter and 0.5mm thick and bash that tube against a concrete floor as hard as you can without denting or chipping it. A sheet of Aermet 100 that's the thickness of a credit card will stop most handgun rounds. I have yet to see any organic material do this, and I seriously doubt I ever will. Until organics get this strong they have no hope of being used for spaceships.

[Nova Andromeda]

So, in other words, instead of using system A to produce something, you use system B to produce operator C which can in turn operate system A to produce something. Congratulations.

--You are missing the point. Your ship needs both system A and operator X and cannot repair as many systems as an organic tech. ship. With organic tech. you only need the cells to grow operator X and some basic tools to be able to repair just about everything. In addition, you don't need to keep opertor X around unless it is needed.

If you must build an organism to operate machinery, then you have conceded the utter uselessness of your process. You still need the machinery, and all you're doing is growing a crew for the ship, when it would be much simpler to recruit one and skip this ridiculous crew-manufacturing system of yours.

--The point is to be able to maintain a ship over a long time far from repair facilities. You can't just recruit new crew. In addition, you don't necessarily need the machine shop. That can be constructed using operator X and some basic tools which can also be grown. This doesn't mean you shouldn't have a machine shop, but it means you can replace it if necessary.

That's the whole point; you are forced to choose metals based on their suitability to the process, rather than choosing the process based on its suitability to the desired product.

--AHHHH! Maybe if I explain it again you will get it! You have a database of cellular processess that involve metal X chemistry. You then search the database and pick the one most suitable to creating material A.

I was thinking it might improve the type of alloy you could make by being able to control the deposition of metal atoms and element concentration exactly.

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).
The scales on which modern computers already operate is much smaller than the size of biological cells. They cannot operate on an atom by atom basis, so forget this silly idea.

--You demonstrated imprecision in biological systems that don't need to be precise and only on the macro scale. Biological systems are extremely precise when you get down to the atomic level. You have yet to tell me why biological systems cannot create bulk metal alloys which would mean you wouldn't need a forge(or whatever it is that produces blocks of metal). I also thought modern alloys had imperfect microstructure which might be improved with organic systems, but I may be totally of base.
-If modern computers are more compact and powerful than a brain then one might need to use them. However, making microchips is not a small opperation while growing a brain is. Why use a microchip when a brain will due and is easily replaced or do you want to put a microchip manufacturing plant in your ship too?

Liquid metal and plastic also conforms to a given space. It's called "casting and moulding", and it happens in seconds, not months.

--Neither of these is useful if you want to replace a complex part like a kidney.

There you go again, touting the ability of biotech to make bio-products (which no one is disputing) and then implying that this also means it can make mechanical products. Stop using B to prove A.

--Well I can build a heart, hands, legs, lungs, eyes, etc? I'm betting an artificial heart has far better tolerances than a real heart. However, a real heart performs its function just fine. I'm not saying all mechanical parts can be grown, but I bet a good number could be and a bioship would be designed with this in mind. In a mechanical ship you need a machine shop and spare parts. In a bioship you don't need a machine shop (since you can build one from scratch) and only need spare parts for those things that you don't have the energy/materials to make.

--You are restricting yourself far too much by trying build stuff from cells that should be built by cells. Some of these things can be replaced by organic versions such as microchips.

Please, by all means, show us these biological microchips. Let's put this in perspective, shall we? Microchips are made on a 0.13 micron process TODAY. Human blood cells measure roughly 7.5 microns wide. And you think big fat cells will make superior microchips in the future because ...

--Who knows which will be superior in future. It depends on how far microfabricatoin techniques are developed. However, biological brains are 3 dimensional. As far as I know micro chips only have a small number of layers. In addition, the axons and dendrites are smaller than the cell itself (~1-5um) which can have 1000's of connections to other cells.

The visual processing centers in my brain are actually quite powerful and yet designed for a specific task.

They are totally inferior to any decent artificial optical system, and they were not designed at all.

--You must have misread this. An optical system (like my eyes) is different from the computer used to process the data. Currently, my brain is far better at things like image recognition than any computer. And yes I should not have said designed; evolved is better.

I see no reason a microchip couldn't be replaced by something like that.

Size, weight, speed, inaccuracy, variability, complexity of supply requirements, etc. all favour the artificial microchip.

--Difficultly of manufacture is a problem with microchips far from base. The size and weight of a brain/microchip is simply not that significant compared with other ship components. Supply requirements are easy to handle for organisms though a bit more bulky. Inaccuracy and variability are problems, but not fatal for many basic purposes. Speed is a weakness as well.

[aerius]

The visual processing centers in my brain are actually quite powerful and yet designed for a specific task.

They are totally inferior to any decent artificial optical system, and they were not designed at all.

--You must have misread this. An optical system (like my eyes) is different from the computer used to process the data. Currently, my brain is far better at things like image recognition than any computer. And yes I should not have said designed; evolved is better.

Even at image recognition it's questionable whether or not a human brain is better than a computer, rather they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. A human brain is better at identifying abstract images, such as what does a cat, dog, horse, or human look like, and whether that human is male or female. A computer is far better identifying and distinguishing between specific objects. For instance a placement machine used for assembling electronic circuit boards can correctly ID millions of different small electronic parts such as resistors, capacitors, IC chips, and transistors. On top of that it can ID hundreds of parts a minute and place them onto the circuit board with great presision. A human would have no hope of doing this.

[Darth Wong]

--You are missing the point. Your ship needs both system A and operator X and cannot repair as many systems as an organic tech. ship. With organic tech. you only need the cells to grow operator X and some basic tools to be able to repair just about everything. In addition, you don't need to keep opertor X around unless it is needed.

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.

--The point is to be able to maintain a ship over a long time far from repair facilities. You can't just recruit new crew.

If you need a ship to be independent for such long periods of time that it becomes feasible to grow new crewmembers, you're talking about a self-contained mini world-ship. 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.

--AHHHH! Maybe if I explain it again you will get it! You have a database of cellular processess that involve metal X chemistry. You then search the database and pick the one most suitable to creating material A.

Presuming that any kind of metal is suitable for this process. 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.

Biological systems are extremely precise when you get down to the atomic level.

Proof, please. I already provided hard figures to show that they are grossly imprecise (1/4" manufacturing tolerance on humans, cellular size more than an order of magnitude larger than modern CPU manufacturing process size, etc). You can't just continue spouting vacuous claims about superior biological accuracy without some kind of evidence.

You have yet to tell me why biological systems cannot create bulk metal alloys which would mean you wouldn't need a forge(or whatever it is that produces blocks of metal).

I don't have to. You have to explain how they CAN, since they have never demonstrated the ability to do so. Please review basic principles of logical parsimony, Occam's Razor, etc. I don't need to prove a negative.

I also thought modern alloys had imperfect microstructure which might be improved with organic systems, but I may be totally of base.

Imperfect microstructure is what makes them strong. And I am getting seriously tired of your circular reasoning. You keep using the imagined superiority of biological systems in order to support your claims of biological superiority. Whenever presented with direct proof to the contrary, you simply point out that I have not yet proven the negative. What is your problem?

-If modern computers are more compact and powerful than a brain then one might need to use them. However, making microchips is not a small opperation while growing a brain is. Why use a microchip when a brain will due and is easily replaced or do you want to put a microchip manufacturing plant in your ship too?

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.

I'm betting an artificial heart has far better tolerances than a real heart. However, a real heart performs its function just fine.

Too bad it's useless as a starship component. Stop changing the subject.

--Who knows which will be superior in future.

Appealing to uncertainty now? You'll have to do better than that.

It depends on how far microfabricatoin techniques are developed. However, biological brains are 3 dimensional. As far as I know micro chips only have a small number of layers. In addition, the axons and dendrites are smaller than the cell itself (~1-5um) which can have 1000's of connections to other cells.

And despite all of that, the computational ability of a human brain is feeble compared to a microchip which is comparatively miniscule, and which requires far less in the way of resources.

--You must have misread this. An optical system (like my eyes) is different from the computer used to process the data.

Irrelevant. You have failed to present an example of a biological system suitable for use on a starship, and you have failed to support your claim that biological manufacturing would produce mechanical components of superior quality, and you have failed to support your claim that biological manufacturing would require less space, resources, and time than conventional manufacturing. In fact, you have not even attempted to support any of these claims despite repeated challenges, you simply keep stating them as presumed facts.

Currently, my brain is far better at things like image recognition than any computer. And yes I should not have said designed; evolved is better.

But the computer is far better at mathematical computation than your brain. We are talking about the components that are useful for a starship, and you keep trying to change the subject. Unless you can perform 500 million floating-point mathematical operations per second in your head, don't keep waxing poetic about brains proving the superiority of biotech. The kinds of things we need in starship components are not the kinds of things that bio-tech can provide.

--Difficultly of manufacture is a problem with microchips far from base.

But not with entire sentient beings, right? How is your bio-tech going to make a microchip? I have already explained that the precision of manufacture is well beyond that which biotech can achieve, and you are simply evading the point.

The size and weight of a brain/microchip is simply not that significant compared with other ship components.

Which is precisely why they can afford to keep spares, thus eliminating this whole ridiculous bio-chip manuafacturing scheme of yours.

Supply requirements are easy to handle for organisms though a bit more bulky.

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.

Inaccuracy and variability are problems, but not fatal for many basic purposes.

They are totally fatal for making microchips, which is supposedly your killer app.

[Nova Andromeda]

Even at image recognition it's questionable whether or not a human brain is better than a computer, rather they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. A human brain is better at identifying abstract images, such as what does a cat, dog, horse, or human look like, and whether that human is male or female. A computer is far better identifying and distinguishing between specific objects. For instance a placement machine used for assembling electronic circuit boards can correctly ID millions of different small electronic parts such as resistors, capacitors, IC chips, and transistors. On top of that it can ID hundreds of parts a minute and place them onto the circuit board with great presision. A human would have no hope of doing this.

--Human image recognition evolved to peform certain functions like identifying a cat. This is a much more difficult problem than the problem the placement machine solves since the replacement machine doesn't have to deal with variability and the signal to noise ratio is high. I bet an organic brain could do the job just fine if it was evolved to do it (as far as ID and placement goes).

[data_link]

And despite all of that, the computational ability of a human brain is feeble compared to a microchip which is comparatively miniscule, and which requires far less in the way of resources.

<nitpick>Actually, while a microchip may exceed the human brain in terms of speed and precision, esp. in serial computing, the total computational ability of the human brain still beats out our supercomputers and will continue to do so for another few decades</nitpick>

Of course, after that... there will be no arguments whatsoever for the superiority of biotech.

[aerius]

--Human image recognition evolved to peform certain functions like identifying a cat. This is a much more difficult problem than the problem the placement machine solves since the replacement machine doesn't have to deal with variability and the signal to noise ratio is high. I bet an organic brain could do the job just fine if it was evolved to do it (as far as ID and placement goes).

And once we get the software part worked out there's no reason a computer won't be able to recognize a cat as well as a human.

[Darth Wong]

<nitpick>Actually, while a microchip may exceed the human brain in terms of speed and precision, esp. in serial computing, the total computational ability of the human brain still beats out our supercomputers and will continue to do so for another few decades</nitpick>

Those kinds of claims are widely repeated, but they are based on the assumption that every neuron impulse should be considered the equivalent of a mathematical operation. It would be a gross understatement to say that this practice is highly questionable and most likely driven by an agenda.

[data_link]

<nitpick>Actually, while a microchip may exceed the human brain in terms of speed and precision, esp. in serial computing, the total computational ability of the human brain still beats out our supercomputers and will continue to do so for another few decades</nitpick>

Those kinds of claims are widely repeated, but they are based on the assumption that every neuron impulse should be considered the equivalent of a mathematical operation. It would be a gross understatement to say that this practice is highly questionable and most likely driven by an agenda.

IIRC, the human brain was estimated at 20 quadrillion firings per second by the "neuron firing=mathematical operation" rule. In contrast, the fastest supercomputers I remember hearing of were about 10 teraflops, although admittedly my source was written three years ago. Still, three orders of magnitude difference is nothing to laugh at - even if we assume that a mathematical operation takes, say, 100 neuron firings, the hman brain is still 10 times more powerful than the fastest supercomputer. Not that that state will last long, of course.

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

First thing - how will an organic ship withstand damage? YOu may have your weird wankfest organochitin alloy bullshit, but remember that chitin is brittle and grows slowly. I could bolt on an armor plate in case of damage and be fixed faster than you.

Secondly - What happens if you suffer a hull breach? Your armor producing layer is exposed to vacuum and... dies. Explosive decompression anyone? If my metal starship gets hit I just apply a ptch from the inside and problem solved. But you can't because your "regenerating layer" has been stripped off by the cold and vacuum.

Thirdly - How do you GROW an organic ship? In space? The soft components DIE when exposed to vacuum. But if you grow it on Earth the gravity wil kill it before it even gets off the ground, and how will you get it into space? ANOTHER starship? Or maybe you use a "space womb". But how does the "space womb" get there? Magic? Or the same way an organic starship would get there, which is not at all?
Meanwhile, I build my metal vessel in space and launch it, while you have to jump through a thousand flaming hoops to even get yours into orbit.

Fourthly - How do you design an organic starship? An organic starship isn't just a starship built using organic materials, it is a whole new organism. Each cell must be designed from scratch, paying attention to replication, organelle placement, product release, etc. And that is just ONE cell. There will be innumerable specialized cells to control replication of other cells each needing their own engineering, the myriad kinds of cells that you use for the exotic functions which conventional technology does so easily, another infinity of cells to control that and so forth...
However quick this "advanced society" can design organic ships, a smart society of equal technological skill could design a similar inorganic material in a fraction of the time and use the time saved to do something useful, like conquer all of known space.

Fifthly - How about making landfall? No organic material can weather heat damage like magnesium oxide, and yet magnesium oxide is obliterated during Space Shuttle landings. An organic ship would turn into a shooting star long before it even reached the troposphere.
Whereas my metal ship lands, picks up more grub and takes off again.

Sixthly - And if it can't make landfall, then what wil your organic ship eat? Asteroids? Space dust? Biomass doesn't grow in space, you know. What's that I hear? Stored food? Nice try, but can you store enough? Can you maintain the crew? Maybe. Can you feed the entire ship? Probably not. And if you DID carry enough biomass, your ship would become a gigantic yolk sac. It is grossly inefficient for a vehicle of any kind if 50% or more of its mass is taken up by fuel. An organic spacecraft would need 80% or more due to extreme inefficiency of organic life.
All a metal starship needs to carry is food for the crew and reaction mass, with some spare parts and that's it.

Seventh - Cancer. If you insist that your organic ship regenerates on the "tumor" phenomenon, then the tumorous cell would influence other cells to cancerify as well. Eventually there'd be a massive growth on one side of the ship which draws nutrients from and weakens the rest of the vessel. Whiel you may like to call this a "slippery slope" fallacy, please remember that a cancer is a slippery slope phenomenon.

Eighth - How do you CONTROL an organic ship? By handling huge penis-like objects? YOur control systems would need to be massive and demand horrendous amounts of metal ions for nervous transmission. Your hormonal control would be worse than useless in this case.
In each and every way an advanced abiotic electronics data transmission system would be vastly superior to organics. And before you say "that's why nature does what works and not what's best", remember that that is the reason why organic ships are big squishy, unshielded and BLIND weak spots while ISDs own the spacelanes.

Ninth - How does an organic ship SEE in space? Windows? Growing a transparent organic material tough enough to withstand micrometeorite impacts is hardly possible and would in any case still restrict you to visual range navigation. Rrrright. And almost all those wonderful means of detection used by terrestrial life forms are useless in space because these means all rely on an atmosphere, and space is a vacuum! Biological radar? Rrright. Have biological systems EVER demonstrated the ability to radiate in the non-visual spectrum or use said radiation effectively? No.

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?

Answer those questions effectively and MAYBE a bioship is feasible.

[Wicked Pilot]

Five fucking pages?! What the hell is going here? I thought this topic was finished on page numero uno. What is the problem? Is this board infected with tree hugging nature nazis who think the inherant goodness of mother earth will some day triumph over the evils of the man made war machine?

[Darth Wong]

Five fucking pages?! What the hell is going here? I thought this topic was finished on page numero uno. What is the problem? Is this board infected with tree hugging nature nazis who think the inherant goodness of mother earth will some day triumph over the evils of the man made war machine?

Yes. It's the biggest brain-bug in all of sci-fi.

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

Five fucking pages?! What the hell is going here? I thought this topic was finished on page numero uno. What is the problem? Is this board infected with tree hugging nature nazis who think the inherant goodness of mother earth will some day triumph over the evils of the man made war machine?

Yes. It's the biggest brain-bug in all of sci-fi.

Some people just die hard.
And play too much Starcraft.

[Sea Skimmer]

Five fucking pages?! What the hell is going here? I thought this topic was finished on page numero uno. What is the problem? Is this board infected with tree hugging nature nazis who think the inherant goodness of mother earth will some day triumph over the evils of the man made war machine?

Yes. It's the biggest brain-bug in all of sci-fi.

Some people just die hard.
And play too much Starcraft.

What? Impossible!

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

Yes. It's the biggest brain-bug in all of sci-fi.

Some people just die hard.
And play too much Starcraft.

What? Impossible!

Like jo0.

*Runs from Skimmer*

[Warspite]

ESB, I think you made the ultimate compilation against biotech!
I especially liked the "roll over and play dead"... By the way, how do you control a bioship in space? Break wind? (Oooohhhh, that wasn't uncalled for!)

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

Eleventh - MOVING a biotech ship. How will you do it? Break wind, like Warspite said? Ironically, that is the only feasible way to do it (being that bioships lack the niceties of dimension warping or ion drives). Maybe you could mix explosive chemicals like Bombardier beetles. But wait - isn't that waht primitive chemical rockets do nowadays? So you puny little armored slug inches along in realspace forever, while all around you the galaxy changes in big metal ships.

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.

Thirteenth - Homeostasis. All these precious organic chemical reactions can only take place in a controlled environment where there is food, warmth, assirted substrates etc. How big will your blood vessel elements have to be? How about supplying the individual cells? How many pumps will you need? How will they deal with the strain of the pumping needed to supply nutrients to a gigantic organ? How many smaller hearts will an organic ship need, not even considering that you are fucked if even one of them should die? And even of you have multiple redundant hearts... how about supplying them with nutrients to keep them pumping? Not to mention this is just for the ship proper... What kinds of demands will maintaining two separate and possibly conflicting biological systems, one for the ship, one for the crew, be like? How will you deal with them?

Fourteenth - Mutation factors. With all the complex proteins needed to build this bioship, frameshift substitutions in the DNA transcriptions can prove lethal to the bioship, especially because all the systems are so interdependent that the loss of one would imply the loss of all. Sure, losing the bioship's pancreas may not sound like much, but without the pancreas there is no glucose level control, leading to death of the more sensitive cells, like the much-vaunted organic neuro net.

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.

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

Seventeenth - How long will it take to grow a bioship? While Nova Andromeda may like to say that larger animals grow more quickly, how long will it take you to grow a 200 metre long life form with complex subsystems, even if we assumed we could do it? (See Point Number Three in previous post) It takes 18 years to grow a human to maturity, and maybe not even then. How long do you think all this specialized biomass will take to grow, mature and develop? Too long, that's how long. I can use Homeworld-level tech to bump out a Heavy Cruiser in five minutes with none of the attendant problems of organic tech.

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.