How to colonize another planet.

Hint: Not realistic.

Here, scientists argue that nanorockets that act like "particle accelerators" could provide thrust to tiny spaceship, speeding them to nearly light speed so that they could reach other stars in a reasonable amount of time. Ignoring the fact that communication with those spaceships would still take...light years...this is a pretty cool idea.

Here, scientists claim to have discovered how to make sperm cells from stem cells.

TAE's genius idea: Load a tiny ship with stem cells and a bioprocessor. Then, launch said ship (and a small army of others explained later) at nearly light speed to nearby stars. The ship army automatically determines if habitable planets exist around star. If not, the microship army moves on to next star, and so forth until a habitable planet is discovered. The bioprocessor ship then activates the bioprocessor, which turns the stem cells into sperm and eggs. The sperm then fertilize the eggs. The fertilized eggs are then frozen and the spaceship sends a "Go" signal.

Phase 2: Once the "go" signal is detected, a small army of microships are launched in the direction of the colony ship. These ships contain parts and pieces of incubation chambers, a power plant, colony buildings, and highly advanced robots. The robot ships, almost like Voltron, assemble in space into the robots, who use solar power to function. The robots then start assembling the power plant, which has an autolanding mechanism built into it. The robots then land (switching from solar power to power from the plant) and assemble the incubation pods. The fertilized eggs are then thawed and cultured in the incubation chambers for 9 months.
Voila! Human babies are born. The robots then meticulously raise them, using food from food-bearing microships that have also landed. The robots also teach them. Soon the humans have started a colony. Earth, meanwhile, (years before) has sent out a radio broadcast to the future colonists. The radio broadcast arrives, and the colonists send one back. Years later, it arrives on earth. Congratulations, we've just colonized another world, in another solar system.

The problem with classic colonization theory is the idea that adult humans climb into a vessel to trumpets and fanfare and blast off from Cape Canaveral to do it. From a resource standpoint, it makes much more sense to send gametes to another planet in tiny, easy to power vessels that actually can move quickly from star system to star system, and once a habitable planet is found...the adult humans are grown onsite.


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