"I'm a rocket man..."
Posted on 05/30/2018 9:29:30 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Mars will be a hard place to raise the children necessary to sustain a permanent colony there. And according to a new paper published in the June issue of the journal Futures, conceiving kids on Mars will be even harder.
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The biological challenges of rearing Mars babies are easy enough to wrap one's head around. For starters, Mars' atmosphere is about 1 percent as thick as Earth's, meaning the planet is hit by a lot more solar radiation than humans are currently used to. NASA studies have shown that radiation exposure might damage astronauts' brain cells and increase their risk of developing cancer. (More to the point of this new paper, it can also severely reduce sperm count.)
The effects of microgravity are also concerning. Mars' gravitational pull is about one-third as strong as Earth's, and that means less pressure and stress are exerted on astronauts' bodies. Nice as that sounds, it's not how human bodies have adapted to function; previous studies of microgravity have shown that astronauts experience vision loss, dehydration, accelerated muscle and bone deterioration, significantly reduced heart rates and even a weakened immune response when living in sub-Earth gravity.
…
"The method of CRISPR makes possible adaptive genetic engineering," the authors wrote. "We should consider the idea of genetic human enhancement before and during that mission."
Doing so could literally result in a "new kind of human species" with a nature better suited for life on Mars, the authors wrote. Such human-made Martians could give a future colony its best shot at survival, even as a biological and moral gulf widens between them and their Earthling ancestors. Mars may still not be the kind of place to raise your kids — but it might become a serviceable place to raise Martians.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
And why is that? (nudge, nudge, wink, wink.)
"I'm a rocket man..."
Well, if he worked for Disney now, he would not lose his job. (A wink is as good as a nod to a blind man.)
Would the women be getting knocked up before or after they land on Mars? /sarc
“Sand, sand, sand - I can’t stand all this endless red sand!!!!!”
In fact it’s cold as hell...
Who’s to say that a baby raised from birth might not
adapt to the lesser gravity. The radiation and other
conditions will have to be dealt with in any event.
Mars Basketball, coming to a channel
on a planet near you soon.
I was more of a Rachael type, myself.
3-titted dwarf hooker lived, but Klaatu died.
Where is the justice in that?
Tara was a plantation in GWTW.
Terra (Firma) is the planet Earth.
What the the hell does this have to do with Mars? Earth was populated over a long time via evolution, not starting from scratch with a dead planet by humans from another planet.
Start looking at NASAs reports on the toxicity of Mars’s soil and it’s 1% atmospheric of earth and you will see why colonialism of Mars is a very bad idea. This doesn’t include the massive radiation astronauts will receive in their 86 weeks of space travel plus the radiation on Mars for their duration on the planet.
It’s a 1 way trip baby.
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