Most dog breeds are many decades or centuries old. They were created with very small numbers of animals (think a dozen or less) and at a time when genetics was poorly understood if at all. Whatever defective genes may have been present in the founding animals, were passed on and concentrated within the population. Such problems are now well understood and would not likely happen today.
The key to founding a new population is careful screening and selection of the founding members of that population. If they are thoroughly screened (or better yet engineered) to have a robust and stable genome, then the problems you mention would not be a concern. Designing healthy genomes for deep space colonization will be a priority when such endeavors become feasible.
I doubt that mass migrations to the stars will ever happen. The distances and travel times involved (not to mention the limited cargo space) will mean that only a few hundred individuals at most could be sent, and that they will be on their own after arriving at their distination. Once again it will come down to small groups in small ships sailing out into a vast unknown ocean, but this time the isolation will be far greater than ever.
Space/Science » in reply to To put it a bit more simply than Robert
Big difference
The whole thread (41 posts)
- Back to the Moon, Moonrush way
- yes agreed
- Frontiers and settlement
- There are intangibles that are important in human space exploration
- re: Back to the Moon, Moonrush way