Ytdyklly

I have a race of octopodes with the same intelligence distribution as humans. I want them to “colonise” land to a similar extent as we have “colonised” space; have regular transport between the ocean and land, and have a permanent settlement. Ideally there would also be some form of EVA suit, to enable them to perform repairs on the colony - as we do on the ISS. Likely those who go to land would be the best of the best - just as we chose the best people to be astronauts.

I have chosen octopodes because I am aware they can manipulate tools with reasonable fidelity, as humans can.

So, the summary; would it be more octopus hours and to set up a colony on land as it was human hours to set up an international space station?

There are a few issues that need to be considered separately:

1. Constructing water-filled environments for a water-breather to reside in on land isn't a significant technical issue. The manufacturing requirements for a salt water pool or aquarium are far simpler to achieve than for an air-filled canister to be used in a vacuum.




2. Getting onto land from the sea requires enormously less energy than getting from the Earth's surface into space.

So far: 2-nil to the octopodes.

3. However, there appear to be significant barriers to the manufacture of metals and ceramics in a watery environment. Similarly, wet chemistry would be a lot more difficult, so it might be hard for the octopodes to develop even simple mechanical technology.




4. A water-breather has a distinct disadvantage in manufacturing/using an EVA suit compared to an air-breather. Air can be compressed and is light. Water is in-compressible and heavy. So an octopus EVA suit would be very heavy and would probably need complex components to continuously reoxygenate the water. It is unlikely that such an EVA suit could be supported/manipulated by an individual octopus without mechanical assistance.

So 2-all in the end. Easier to get there, simpler technology required for the environment, but harder to move around and possibly harder to develop even the simpler tech.

But if the octopodes do already have a similar technology base to us, then it would be much simpler/cheaper/faster for them to reach land than it is for us to reach space.

I would say that for both humans and your octopodes, Space is a much tougher frontier.

Without going into the details, I would like to direct you to a few factors that may come into play.

Space as it were, is extremely dangerous for both humans and octopodes. Radiation, extreme temperature changes, micro gravity, and the vacuum of space. In comparison to a human trying to live in the ocean, or octopus trying to live on land, space is much more dangerous. As humans can go snorkeling and swim in water, octopodes can hang out on the sea shores for a bit but to both, space really suck all the life out of them.( And makes the water in their body boil and then freeze.) http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zctgq6f

On another point, technology needed are an important factor. Note that the space suits required for humankind is much more expensive and technologically advance compared to a scuba diver's gear, space suits are whole other level.I would assume your octopus would have a similar comparison. ( The specifics of technology I will leave out as the price difference is clue enough.) The other thing is that space is a lot harder to get to than a place that is on your home planet.

The resources required for colonies is important. Note that space has terrible resources compared to anything on our lovable Earth. As with most pioneer colonies, resources for initial colonization would be sent to the site. It would be easier to do that if the colony was on the same planet. After your colony starts its own manufacturing and works towards sustainability, the resources at the site would play an important role in how much needs to be shipped from home to the colony. Land has trees.Your octopodes would not have lumber as traditional materials.I could guess that your adorable octopode scientists would bring up the idea to use local materials instead of coral and seaweed or whatever ocean things do. Space has rocks and ice. Not really a nice place to grow octopode food. https://science.howstuffworks.com/what-if-moon-colony1.htm

The very final point is most obvious. Space stations mimic the environments humans lived in on Earth. Your land colony for octopodes is probably going to be something along the lines of an aquarium tank scientified( That is not a word). Or a pool or lake. I don't "sea" that as very difficult at all. In fact, it is easier for Octopodes to colonize land than it is for humans to live underwater. Depending on the species, atmospheric pressure differences hurts creatures with air filled lungs much more than octopodes.

I suggest you think your idea over a bit. May I suggest toughening up the environment on land compared to the sea? A more lifeless or hostile environment on land could bring the difficulty of a land colony closer to a space colony. If a tough colonization project is what you want your octopodes to go through.

You can see octopodes crawl out of a tide pool and into a neighboring pool with little difficulty. octopodes have been known to crawl out of a tank in an aquarium and have the crab in the tank next door for dinner. They have even been known to shut off lights that bother them in their tank at an aquarium. They have been documented crawling out of their tanks, walking to a drain and exiting to the sea.

I would definitely feel humans in space would have a much more difficult time at survival.

• https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/10/wales-ceredigion-octopus-land-deaths-spd/


• https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/43456/how-long-can-an-octopus-survive-out-of-the-water

One major advantage that octopodes have in colonising the land, is that they can already make short stints out of the water without any specialised equipment. This is very much not true of humans in a vacuum.

A question asked on Biology SE details the ability of an octopus to survive out of water, and another source details that coming out of the water to hunt terrestrial prey is common behaviour for certain kinds of octopus.

What this suggests to me, is that given human level intelligence (maybe paired with a longer lifespan?), octopodes would be well placed to begin colonising the shores. They probably wouldn't even need particularly advanced technology to do it.

Octopodes are not going to colonize land the same way we've colonized space - they're going to colonize the land the way we've colonized the sea.

Penguino has done a pretty good of addressing how different it is for humans to go to space versus octopodes coming ashore. But there is a parallel that's much closer to shore (so to speak).

An octopus' ability to survive on land is not that different from our ability to survive under the ocean, and in both cases there are resources that make it worth learning how to extend that length of time.

You're not going to see ISS-like mobile aquariums as the early colonization steps. You're going to see irrigation, dikes, and dams, which turn formerly dry land into tidepools the same way humans carved Holland out of the sea.

The earliest land-going octopus vehicles will be not be spacecraft or submarine-like - they'll be more akin to large bowls on wheels probably crank-powered (or oar-powered), given the difficulty they'll have domesticating any suitable pulling animal. They won't exactly be safe, but then again neither were the earliest boats.

Entirely enclosed habitats won't come until much later, assuming they come at all. There's simply no need for them, and their construction complexity (and expense!) is much higher.