NPR's SCIENCE FRIDAYS.
Craig Venter author, LIFE AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT.
Digital Biology, Biological and social evolution.
New tech and theory has shown that living cells can be printed with a 3d printer after the cells DNA code was digitally transferred.
Flu vaccines have been developed using this tech.
Venter says that with this tech developed further, we may be able to do things like, say, if any type of life is found on Mars, then a robot can digitally code the dna of the "life", transmit it back to earth then print out that life form. Far better and more efficient then physically transporting it.
This could apply to man exploring further planets and parts of space.(the rest is my own words)
Say we send out a probe with the receiving equipment to receive digital transmissions from Earth, once it arrives at a planet or any portion of space we want to see our own "eyes", we could transmit the dna code of a human,supplied with the memory programming of that human, to that probe. Once there, the probe prints out and assembles the person (or grows in a tube/pod, etc). The person is grown and "programmed" with his/her own memory. They then can be used to make any "first contact" with any other life form.
Once done, the probe can do the process in reverse, sending back the needed data. The person created is stuck there, but it eliminates the necessity of actual human travel until we are really ready.
I suppose the same could be done with Mars; instead of flying actual people there, we send the dna code, print the needed "life stuff" grow them in a pod, then begin colonization. We could send all types of stuff-algae to help with O2, "good" bacteria, plant life, etc.
The podcast (23 minutes):
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=240751591&m=240751580