I agree with coldfish, this is an awesome idea. Those in the "boo humans r teh suxxor" crowd are whining for no reason, TFA is suggesting seeding the cosmos with microbes not humans. Also the microbes that would be sent would probably not destroy any native microbes that they came across as those microbe would have had years to develop and evolve in their own habitat while ours would be engineered by humans and computers trying to approximate what the enviroment is like on some distant rock. This person should set up a nonprofit in order to pursue this. Seed the near galaxy with microbe rockets and space sails.