HI Martin P, you know a man who can answer that don't you. Where's Dave?

Fawkes this is a very interesting thought.
Memories recovered from these dna samples i think we've all concured will be a NO
but as when on an archeological dig and they discover a skull and then ask someone to re-create
the look of this person's face (it is amazing how this is done btw) they may well be able to recreate the
look of the person from this dna? so yes this i think may be possible in the future.

Martin, i agree with you...who knows what may change in the future...ethics today maybe thrown
out of the window in the future (especially if a situation such as we've discussed occurs)

El_Crazy, very interesting (a few of those words i'll be honest went right over my head but i
got the general idea of what you were saying)
It makes sense that two clones may well look similar but would obviously not be exactly the same.

Mike, as always very good and interesting points, btw i love Carpenter's 'Starman'
Like you i figured that we would probably retain the rights to our own dna but for this mission
maybe we might just have to give these up for the reasons you mentioned
(let's not make this too complicated and bogged down with rights, otherwise they may have
second thoughts which would be a shame)

It will probably be a given that ' Everyone that sends a sample gives up any rights to it '
Makes sense then there's no such problems and then let's hope maybe one day they come up
with a way (as Fawkes mentioned) of using them somehow in the future.

There's far more mileage in this subject

Abi & Martin...I think LM's has indicated that these samples and data chips will
be properly protected and insulated (otherwise what's the point?) and i think
your right Abi about the Dinosaur dna.

As a molecular biologist with a speciality in Genetics and epigenetic, this subject is very interesting

As to two clones being the same I think you are right, there genetic material will be the same but epigenetic details will give them slight differences, But for my money i think the main difference in personality and appearance will be from differences in the microbiota in the clones. It has been shown that the microflora in the gut has a major impact on human metabolism.

For the protection of the samples in the moon they'll have to stored in a container that is impervious to radiation, since even a slight amount of radiation on these exposed DNA sample will alter the genetic code, or even destroy it. That being said i think the Lunarmission one scientists have that part under control.

When it comes to the theoretical possibility of cloning a human from just the DNA sequence, it is not that far fetched. Craig Wenter has actually already created a cell with he's DNA inside it, his team sequenced his DNA from the bottom up and then fused it together and then implanted it inside a cell. But going from there to a full-sized human is a bit harder, you would need to add the DNA to a pluripotent stem cell, and make sure the cell survives and differentiates correctly, then with the current technics it would have to be developed in a woman. As a undergrad I work for a research group that experiment in the growth of human cells in microgravity, and my supervisor said the following " if we where given all the funding we wanted we could be able to grow a human being in vitro in 10-15 years, and mind you that was 3 years ago.

So however ethically wrong it might be to grow cloned humans in batch mode, it might something that we have to think a lot more about in the future as the science in molecular biology is accelerating very fast in this area at the moment, not to create humans but to enable to growth of replacement human organs.

Jesper, it's always good to hear from someone who knows more about this subject.
I think Lunar Missions as you say will have this tied up, can you imagine going to all this trouble and then
placing all these dna hair samples in simple plastic boxes
I'm sure they'll take advice from people such as yourself and make sure they will still be viable many hundreds
if not thousands of years in the future.

As for the ethics...as we've discussed, I doubt this will happen within our lifetime's but who knows in the future?
What I do NOT want is for any possible 'Human Clones' to not have any 'Human Rights' and be cloned and used
in dangerous conditions or to do things uncloned humans are not willing to do.

This morning I saw a wonderful debate show called 'The Big Question' which asked...
Has human rights achieved more for mankind than religion?
I would vote yes because everyone, no matter what religious beliefs, race, gender etc are protected.

Maybe one day when we leave this planet and begin colonizing other worlds we could start again with regards to
this question...and hopefully this will apply to ANY and ALL clones (should it happen)

Martin P wrote: Great post Xabi, I never consider the actual act of giving birth having an impact with regards to how a clone could differ. So essentially while a clone could in theory be identical to the "host" in every way it would actually be unlikely due to the reasons you mention.

They will be extremely similar and hard to distinguish as a couple of monozygotic twins but with an additional difference: natural twins are usually raised in the exact same conditions and that has a marked impact reducing their potential differences, while the conditions a clone will be raised... well who knows, that's still very hypothetical
Keep this equation in mind:
Phenotype = Genotype + Environment
being "Environment" any non-heritable factor