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Physiologically, humans need shelter from the elements, a breathable atmosphere and nutrients. All of those are engineering problems. What happens to a human b
by fsloth 11y ago
Physiologically, humans need shelter from the elements, a breathable atmosphere and nutrients. All of those are engineering problems.
What happens to a human body when it's spent long time in zero-g? I have no idea.
Can humans survive psychologically away from earth? Quite a many of us spend quite a lot of time just watching screens so the tiny boxes of first generation colonists might be livable.
If we belive physiological and psychological survival is feasible, then the only matter left considering I think is acquisition of raw materials and bootstrapping a colony-based industry.
I have no idea of the chemical composition of say, mars, and does is have all of the elements we need for our precious technology. But I would imagine earth is not the only place in the solar system with abundance of the all of the important ones.
This last one is a bit of an unknown to me but otherwise you would need to convince me pretty hard that colonization is not a feasible concept.
- bkeroack 11y agoEvery aspect of human physiology is highly dependent upon the very specific (and, as far as we currently know, unique) conditions found on Earth. Everything from the salinity of our bodily fluids to the atmospheric pressure and composition we need to breathe, the minerals we require in our diet, even exposure to sunlight and the diurnal day/night cycle. At the risk of sounding metaphysical, we are as much a part of the Earth as your kidney is a part of your body. Yes, we probably can take your kidney out and keep it alive via artificial means for a certain period of time (it's just an engineering problem) but it is a rather large leap to do so permanently. It's worth asking whether the effort even makes sense.
- fsloth 11y agoYeah, I see your angle. However, I'm writing this north of the 60 parallel and my country survives quite well in these conditions although they are quite different than the african savannahs native to our species. Although on a dark and wet december evening, I do wonder what my ancestors were thinking coming this much north. For a human baby, the womb is the physiologically most natural growth environment. At birth we are separated from our mothers and the comforting heartbeat fades away to other noises. If I may respond to your methaphysical idea: perhaps earth is the womb of a space faring species, and our offspring will longingly observe it through telescopes like a person always misses her parents. But a longing does not incapacitate us, it merely tints the daily experience with a hint of bittersweet. But in practice - human space flight at a large scale is a messy subject and like most topics of systemantics it will require endless amount of tinkering to even figure out if the idea is valid.