Chemical tests show that certain amino acids, vitamins etc are missing from local life. The shipwrecked Meteor crew eat packaged food until they can get their food plant to work. Without any mechanical aids, they must:
assemble a small nuclear generator for current;
level a site for the food plant tanks with hand shovels;
erect a shelter and stockade;
assemble the tanks, pumps and irradiator coils;
sterilize them;
fill them with distilled water;
add organics, minerals and cultures;
filter the air intake;
seal all of this apparatus against contamination;
wait;
pump out nutritious gene-tailored plankton;
return the water;
cook the plankton;
eat it either flavoured or unflavoured - the latter is shrimp-like;
process their own waste into the tanks;
keep learning about their new environment.
A high tech but genuine struggle for survival.
14 comments:
Quite credible. Tho' by then I'd expect gene-tailored ability to turn anything lacking in the local edibles (if they're edible at all) into what you need.
I mean, there are already gene therapies which alter your DNA selectively in your living body.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
But will those gene tailored therapies become effective soon enough to do old coots like us any good? (Smiles wryly)
Ad astra! Sean
Within the next 1-3 years, probably. Initial results hhave been very good.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
So soon? Even for cancers like mesothelioma (which is what killed my brother in 2022)? I was thinking such gene tailored therapies would need another 30 years or more to become practical.
Ad astra! Sean
Mr Stirling
From what you know about these gene therapies, might they be useful for anti-aging therapies, ie: something with some slight resemblance to the anti-agathic of "World Without Stars" ?
So far, the gene therapies are mostly aimed at liver functions.
To be possible, you need to know precisely what the DNA contributes to the disease, and it has to be in a place you can get at. Those are the limiting factors right now.
Kaor, Jim!
Besides what Stirling said I would add that I'm skeptical any anti-aging therapies will be practical any time soon. It's probably too late for anyone who's now over age 65. Such are the breaks of life!
Ad astra! Sean
Every man must dree his weird, as the old saying goes.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, and there are lines in the Psalms about how we can only expect to live till about age 70, or 80 if we are strong.
Ad astra! Sean
Living to 90 is no longer rare.
I wonder if life expectancy at birth will go up by a year for every several years that pass, for a long time to come.
That seems at least as likely as either hitting a hard limit or some sudden advance that eliminates aging.
Jim,
I think I heard that economic recession has caused life expectancy to decline again.
Paul.
Kaor, Jim!
I am not quite so sure of that--because so many things can affect average life expectancy. To say nothing, of course, of how health inevitably starts failing after a certain time for all of us.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Jim!
I also thought of Psalm 89 (LXX numbering), 1-6: "O Lord, thou hast been our refuge from generation to generation. Before the mountains were brought forth and the earth and the world were born, from eternity to eternity thou art, O God. Thou commandest mortal men to return to dust and sayest: 'Return, O children of men.' For a thousand years in thy sight are as yesterday which has passed, and as a watch in the night. Thou snatchest them away: they become like a morning dream, like sprouting grass: in the morning it flourishes and is green, at night it is cut down and withers."
And verse 10: "The sum of our years is seventy and, if we are strong, eighty; and most of them are labor and vanity: for they pass swiftly and we fly away."
The wisdom in Psalm 89 may be hard and grim, but very real and bracing.
Ad astra! Sean
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