So I've been reading a couple of the new pages on the website and came across this page. lunarmissionone.com/index.php/Business-C...ticles/revenues.html amongst some other information such as the expected revenue and expected amount of customers (this forum could get very busy) I noticed at the top the following:

"A hair shaft contains an individual’s genome, but that genome is not preserved intact. It is possible to recover DNA code from hair and to use that information to reconstruct the genome sequence with computer software, by mapping the recovered fragments to a reference genome. This means that, in principle, it might be possible to use DNA recovered from hair to reconstruct a genetic lookalike. However, this would require a more detailed knowledge of the complex machinery of DNA processes in cells than that which exists today."

For me the possibility of this happening sells it for me. I'm 90% sure I will buy my spot for a hair sample. so my topic for discussion is this. Though it's theoretically possible do you think it will actually happen? Would it somehow have your memories or is that the stuff of science fiction with it being just a hair sample? If it would what do you think your clone would make of it? I am going to assume any clones wouldn't have memories so what do you think the v2 version of you would do after waking up on a moon base to a time of planetary space travel?

Great post Fawkes.

I have thought about this myself a few times. Who knows what will be possible hundreds of years in the future but I do day dream that one day I will wake up in a lab hundreds of years from now with all my memory intact!

What does everyone else think?

It's baffling in a way because if I did wake up as an adult clone with memories It wouldn't be me it would still be someone else and I think it would take the clone a long time to really understand that. First thing I imagine my clone would do though is resist the urge to travel to other planets and head home to see how it changed, find any distant relatives, visit recognisable places on Earth and basically be stuck in the past. It would probably be easier actually to start a new life without the memories and start fresh. This should be a film plot if it isn't already.

I am not really a biologist but I seem to remember that memories are stored chemically in the brain in different regions based on wether it is the short term or long term memory and not stored inside DNA itself. If this is true then it suggests that individual memories would probably not be stored in the DNA of a hair. Its my best guess a clone would essentially be a normal baby who just happened to look exactly like you.

From a pure scientific stand point of view I don't see any reason why it couldn't happen I'm sure we are smart enough to work out how to do it. However my gut tells me that it probably won't happen because of the ethical, religious and social implications of cloning an individual, even one that has been dead a long time.

Various countries have already banned human cloning including European, UK, Australia, Canada and the United States. This does not always include theraputical cloning (stem cell research/organ cloning) but outright cloning a person is already heading down the path of being deemed unacceptable.

Against whilst no religious expert I find it difficult to believe the various western religions would accept cloning as this would encrouch on the role of god as creator, whilst eastern religions tend to focus on cyclic re-incarnation which probably isn't compatible with cloning either.

So at the what do I think, erm I think we would be capable but probably prohibited from cloning.

This DNA sample was always going to open up these kind of questions...

BTW Fawkes as i understand it and was led to believe those with 'Club Member 60' Level and higher should
receive a 'Lifetime Membership' to this and future missions but also (and i'm sure it was confirmed over on the Kickstarter Forum)
you'll get the Data & this DNA sample so you don't have to choose which...you get both if so you choose.

We're getting more clever with each passing decade...

I think cloning from the hair dna samples may one day be possible but as for it retaining your memories?

Sadly Martin i think this is highly doubtful but who really knows with dna? but unlikely I think.

I believe SteveC to be correct in that memories are stored in the brain and not in dna (although i've
seen movies that suggested this)
I also agree that for now and for the forseeable future and due to the implications this will NOT happen,
that's not to say never, we've seen those post nuclear movies and Earth ravaged by viruses etc so who knows?
maybe one day these dna samples may well be the new Humankind Ark that helps re-populate our Planet and
helps save us...sounds far fetched I know...but you just never know!

As for who owns the rights to these dna samples? well clearly we do even whilst on the Moon but when we're
playing the harps up on that cloud do they revert to possibly our families? in which case those 'Moon' clones
may well look up our future families (those that are still around)
It's an interesting but highly improbable scenario...in all likelihood they will stay on the moon for many hundreds
if not thousands of years untouched.

Yes some good points here. Firstly ethics forgot about that. Playing God can be viewed as unethical by some. And with the memories yeah It's gotta be in the brain it wont be in the DNA. who volunteers a brain sample to send to the moon instead? The DNA is still useful though even if they don't clone they could digitally recreate us and study us. The same way we study ancient cavemen and Egyptian mummies. "look how short and weird they look"