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Colonizing Mars may require humanity to tweak its DNA

Forerunner

Forerunner

Resetufologist
The Fallen
Oct 30, 2017
14,634
www.space.com

Colonizing Mars may require humanity to tweak its DNA

Genetic engineering may be a big part of our future on Mars.
www.space.com www.space.com

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If humanity is ever going to settle down on Mars, we may need to become a little less human.

Crewed missions to Mars, which NASA wants to start flying in the 2030s, will be tough on astronauts, exposing them to high radiation loads, bone-wasting microgravity and other hazards for several years at a time. But these pioneers should still be able to make it back to Earth in relatively good nick, agency officials have said.
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Genetic engineering and other advanced technologies "may need to come into play if people want to live and work and thrive, and establish their family, and stay on Mars," Kennda Lynch, an astrobiologist and geomicrobiologist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, said on May 12 during a webinar hosted by the New York Academy of Sciences called "Alienating Mars: Challenges of Space Colonization."
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Genetic enhancement may not be restricted to the pages of sci-fi novels for much longer. For example, scientists have already inserted genes from tardigrades — tiny, adorable and famously tough animals that can survive the vacuum of space — into human cells in the laboratory. The engineered cells exhibited a greater resistance to radiation than their normal counterparts, said fellow webinar participant Christopher Mason, a geneticist at Weill Cornell Medicine, the medical school of Cornell University in New York City.
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Tardigrades and "extremophile" microbes, such as the radiation-resistant bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans, "are a great, basically natural reservoir of amazing traits and talents in biology," added Mason, who has been studying the effects of long-term spaceflight on NASA astronaut Scott Kelly. (Kelly spent nearly a year aboard the International Space Station in 2015 and 2016.) "Maybe we use some of them."
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Harnessing these traits might also someday allow astronauts to journey farther than Mars, out to some even more exotic and dangerous cosmic locales. For instance, a crewed journey to the Jupiter moon Europa, which harbors a huge ocean beneath its icy shell, is out of the question at the moment. In addition to being very cold, Europa lies in the heart of Jupiter's powerful radiation belts.
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Pwnz

Pwnz

Member
Oct 28, 2017
14,279
Places
Genetic modification for radiation? Seems a bit much. NASA has already brainstormed about teraforming Mars including artificial moons to creat an artificial magnetic shield.
 
N.Domixis

N.Domixis

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
9,208
If only religion didn't prevent us. We be modifying ourselves to breath in water if we were allowed.
 
Maple

Maple

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,732
Our genes hold all the keys. Look at what the small genetic differences in primates and humans confers in terms of intelligence. Imagine our capabilities if we can continue to introduce further tweaks.
 
robot

robot

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,470
Future ethical conundrums aside, this is really cool. We're making our own Newtypes.
 
Digital Dinosaur

Digital Dinosaur

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,050
Rita Repulsa's Moon Palace
To be honest, it is inevitable that in time humanity will have to modify itself to survive in the universe. Any animal will have evolved to live comfortably in on its planet of origin only. It will be ill-suited and frail in any other environment.

It will happen one way or another. Any ethical concerns will have to be sorted, but it's coming.
 
jett

jett

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
44,659
Seems almost like a given. The human body is not meant to survive beyond this planet.
 
HStallion

HStallion

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
62,262
I'd imagine given enough time humanity will just become cyborgs for space travel. Replace all the the weak easy damaged flesh with efficient durable machinery.
 
Kieli

Kieli

Self-requested ban
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
3,736
It is way easier to solve climate change on Earth than it would be to terraform Mars. If we have tech to terraform Mars, we'd more than easily salvage Earth.
 
Culex

Culex

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
6,844
We need to solve the solar radiation problem first. Astronauts in the ISS can only stay there for so long before it's an issue. The limit is what, a year?
 
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