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Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2008 > August > 21 > Entry
Time capsule and DNA in space: I don’t get it
It’s much harder to go out and do something amazing and cool than it is to sit in front of a computer and complain about how something someone else is doing is not as amazing or cool as they think.
So, in writing this entry, I’m painting myself into the corner of being the jerk, the cynic, the doubter. But if I’m being honest, I have to say — I don’t get Operation Immortality. Not at all. I am vexed in a way that the multiple press releases I’ve received, articles I’ve read and even conversations with NCSoft’s Richard Garriott himself have not been able to resolve.
You’re going into space with a bunch of DNA and a recorded history of mankind’s greatest achievements. For… why?
Disclosure: I’m not a big space guy. I’ve never dreamed of donning the bulb helmet and walking on the moon. I’d be satisfied taking enough vacation time to make it to Hawaii someday. I’m not someone who would spend $30 million to go off into space. For that kind of money, I’d probably construct the world’s most awesome three-mile-long water slide and build it in my back yard in New Braunfels.
But, all right, more power to you. You want to fly into space and float around and drink Tang and do your bodily functions through tubes for 10 days? Be my guest. Happy astro-trails. Blast away.
Where Garriott loses me is in the “Immortality Drive,” a time capsule that he will take into space with him when he takes off on October 12 for the International Space Station.
The drive will contain a history of mankind’s greatest achievements (I hope “TiVo” is listed in there somewhere) and DNA sequences of some celebrities.
This week, I received a press release saying that musician Joe Ely’s DNA would be included (what if aliens don’t like Tex-Mexy honky-tonk?) as well as “Insights” of nine Nobel laureates, all conveniently featured in Austinite Turk Pipkin’s film “Nobelity.” (They are: Desmond Tutu, Steve Weinberg, Jody Williams, Ahmed Zewail, Rick Smalley, Wangari Maathai, Sir Joseph Rotblat, Dr. Harold Varmus, and Amartya Sen.)
I’m expecting to receive more press releases as other notables are added to the DNA and insights roster, but a key part of the Immortality Drive is that players of NCsoft’s video game “Tabula Rasa” will be selected to have their DNA be part of the project.
Now here’s where things get funky: Garriott supposes that if, say, we should blow up the planet or kill off our species on Earth (which never seems like such a remote idea in an election year), we could repopulate the species using this DNA.
It pains me to say this as a gamer because I hate when we, as video game players, are stereotyped by the media. And I mean no disrespect. But here I go: do you really think it’s such a good idea to repopulate the human race using DNA from players of a massively multiplayer online game? I mean, we gamers may be smart, and we may have decent hand/eye coordination, but we are, in general, a snack-food-eating, sedentary, smack-talking bunch of jerks.
What would the prime directive be? Terraform a planet so we can get some decent Internet access on this stupid rock and rebuild “World of Warcraft?”
If you had a bunch of gamers trying to create a new civilization, you’d have hours of debates about where we should bury the l33t drops and who has the fastest escape capsule. Instead of figuring out a way to make a planet inhabitable, DNA-created pioneers would be trash talking each other over their little space headsets and laughing about whose oxygen tank got p0wned.
I don’t understand the whys of this whole idea. But I do get good marketing. NCsoft’s game “Tabula Rasa,” which launched late last year, was going to blow the doors of the massively multiplayer online game genre, but as of this date, it has not sold as well as NCsoft was hoping. Within all this space hoopla is, of course, publicity for the game. Every tiny chapter in the “Richard… in spaaaace!” saga only adds more air to the ember that is the hope that “Tabula Rasa” will rebound, attracting more subscribers. Maybe some people are willing to pay a monthly fee for an opportunity to swab DNA off their cheek and shoot it into space. And then, maybe, play the game, too.
I’m not going to tell Richard Garriott how to do his job or what he should be doing up in space. I would suggest breathing regularly, but as far as the Immortality Drive goes, let’s just say that maybe I’m on a whole different planet. Perhaps I lack vision. Maybe that’s why I’m under office fluorescent lights writing a blog and Garriott is preparing to fly to the heavens.
Good luck up there, man. Let’s hope with all our hearts we’ll live in a future where all that DNA will never have to be used.
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By Prentiss Riddle
August 21, 2008 3:14 PM | Link to this
My immediate association when I hear about blasting DNA into space is: ew.