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How settling Mars could create a new human species
- api 10y agoThis is absolutely correct from a perspective of bog-standard evolutionary biology. A "fork" of a species into two very different environments with limited gene flow between them is virtually guaranteed to eventually lead to speciation event. Not that there's anything wrong with that. :)
- rootbear 10y agoAgreed. It would be interesting to see how genetic engineering might be used to "steer" the changes needed to adapt to life on Mars. I've been concerned about the gravity issue for some time. It's not at all clear that 0.38g is healthy for humans in the long term. And the radiation threat is a very serious issue, even just for the trip out there. The long term effects are hard to predict. It really is a pity that Venus is such a hell hole; 0.87g would be much nicer on the human body.
- M_Grey 10y agoOr we could try to exploit the 78%+ of this planet we don't use... the oceans. Easier than space, that's for damned sure.
- eveningcoffee 10y agoWe are exploiting the oceans to large degree: fishing, oil pumping, waste dumping, trade routes, even possibly some of the CO2 accumulation.
- M_Grey 10y agoI was thinking more in terms of places to live actually... since that's the only benefit Mars has for us. Asteroid mining is an easy thing to see the benefit of, but colonizing another gravity well without fully exploiting our own? Not so much.
- wongarsu 10y agoBut what advantages does settling the ocean have compared to say, settling Wyoming (which with 6 people per square mile is much, much closer to the average population density of the ocean than the average population density of land)? With settling Mars we mitigate a number of potential extinction events, and fulfill some science fiction dreams. Living in the ocean also helps with both goals, but to a much lesser degree.
- Apocryphon 10y agoWyoming is closer to the Yellowstone Caldera.
- M_Grey 10y agoIf that puppy blows, any colony on Mars would almost certainly die off, unless they had become totally self-sufficient. I can't imagine that an Earth struggling with that level of natural disaster would bother with such a far-flung enterprise.
- M_Grey 10y agoLiving on Mars only obviates the risk of extinction when it has a biosphere capable of supporting life, or is sufficiently advanced to survive without regular shipments from Earth. We're not even remotely close to that, even in the planning or dreaming stages. That said, Wyoming makes more sense than Mars too.
- dpc59 10y agoNot necessarily, deep water is a shit ton of pressure.
- M_Grey 10y agoStill easier than vacuum, hard radiation, and total isolation from a functional biosphere. You don't have to colonize the Marianas Trench after all.
- pharke 10y agoPerhaps, the sea poses its own set of challenges. Given sufficient funds, anyone can buy a boat but deriving useful benefit from seafaring is another story. If you were to explore the 'unused' or currently unexploited aspects of the ocean it would require similar investments in research, life support, materials, construction, and a host of other areas that also need to be tackled for space colonisation and exploration. Say you wanted to create a city sized operation/colony. If we start by comparing to vessels and platforms already in operation we see that the price tag for such can vary between $250 million and >$1 billion for both cruise ships and oil platforms. Those costs are for established technologies with existing production infrastructure and with the assumption of constant resupply and a market for the goods and services they produce. If you were to break ground on a completely new area the costs would be much, much higher. There's also the question of what special benefit we gain from moving an operation to the ocean when compared to doing something similar on land. Both are still on Earth with all its pros and cons but the ocean simply multiplies the engineering challenges. You could ask the same question of space but the difference is that a space based facility has several major advantages that go hand in hand with the challenges it presents. Namely, greatly reduced gravity, vast amounts of 'rare' elements, the potential to move large quantities of material with a comparatively small vehicle/engine, and the prestige that comes with a new frontier. Finally, doing one does not necessarily mean we neglect the other. There are many areas where advances in one could benefit the other and there are proposals for systems that would see a great deal of overlap between the two, such as the Sea Dragon.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_(rocket) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_(rocket)
- M_Grey 10y agoI would agree that on land makes a lot of sense in terms of living space, but in terms of trade and all of the other factors which have traditionally driven humans to the coasts, not so much. By contrast Mars offers nothing that isn't more readily obtained from asteroids, and still offers a gravity well to be stuck in. If you want zero G, vacuum industries, that kind of thing... moons or large asteroids make much more sense than Mars. A terraformed Mars makes sense, but it's not exactly impending. If you just think about it terms of colonies on Earth, colonies existed because they had something to offer the "mainland". Sugar, rum, slaves, spices... something. Colonies without that benefit didn't stay colonies for long, and what's the point of creating... I don't know... SpaceHaiti2000?
- eloisant 10y agoAnd let's not forget the Sahara, the Gobi Desert, etc... Cleaning the atmosphere and terraforming those deserts is probably much easier than terraforming Mars.
- rawnlq 10y agoWhere does the selection pressure come from though? I have enough faith in our race that even if we have someone who is genetically less fit for mars we won't just let him die before he reaches a reproductive age. So will it be by their potential partners? It would be pretty funny if they end up developing martian dating apps that requires putting their DNA sequences online just like how height and race is currently required.
- s_kilk 10y ago> martian dating apps that requires putting their DNA sequences online Hmm, as long as the separate species are still physically compatible *cough, I don't see why that would be necessary, at least in the context of dating/hookups. For breeding? Sure.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago> martian dating apps that requires putting their DNA sequences online This isn't how selection pressure works. And while you're correct that we won't let a human die, potential partners already do a sort of DNA analysis. While it's not as ruthless as in the wild, potential partners definitely evaluate each other based on criteria like fitness, appearance, and intelligence, which have genetic components. Consider that the Martian environment might make individuals who are genetically more susceptible to skin cancer likely to have facial scarring before reproductive age, or make lanky individuals more graceful in the low gravity, or make short people able to move through small hab units with less awkwardness. Or consider the potential effects of claustrophobia or a proclivity for motion sickness on life in space, or the demands on intelligence and resulting careers. These effects would cause some genotypes to be more attractive than others in a different way than they are on Earth where, for example, height is often considered attractive and is not penalized by short space hab ceilings. It's not that those lacking these traits would be prohibited from reproducing, but that they would have a bit of a challenge finding partners, while those possessing the traits would find it slightly easier. As a result of a few on the margin failing or succeeding in finding partners, those with the traits might have 2.55 children on average, and those without might have 2.53 children. Eventually, this pressure could shift the gene pool in a different direction than Earth.
- zardo 10y agoWe wont be colonizing Mars in a future where we can't email and print a genome.
- mc32 10y agoA different question altogether, but interesting none the less, let's say Russia or China get to colonize Mars first, then let's say they find a safe way to thrive there. could they then by extension manage new colonization of Mars the same way we colonized earth? That is the colonizer could regulate who might get to further colonize Mars --ie require a kind of interplanetary visa (if we allow many people from many places on Earth have the means to get there)? Are there treaties which require any colonizer to allow other people to set a foothold there? And what if the new Martians just declare independence? Do we cross our arms?
- M_Grey 10y agoThe colonization of Earth was accomplished with brute force, not visas.
- mc32 10y agoImagine deep sea exploration. Someone finds something very valuable and worth extracting despite the cost. There are treaties for this, of course. But would it work the same for Mars? Or, would we revert to force, as you say, if the Mars colony declares independence and says, no more Earthlings or only Earthlings from Country X who pay us handsomely.
- M_Grey 10y agoI suspect the truth is that we wont' be truly settling Mars for any length of time, and if we do it will be with automation rather than humans, or humans who have been extensively modified, maybe even bred for the role. The alternative is a series of technological breakthroughs which are nowhere apparent on the horizon.
- xkcd-sucks 10y agoInsects, algae, lichens, bacteria etc. are might be stronger contenders than inorganic self-replicating machinery. They're pretty good at surviving harsh environments already, evolve pretty quickly, and often have life cycles adapted to multiple types of environment and timescales of activity, much like multi-stage spacecraft.
- M_Grey 10y agoThe problem there is that however we engineer them, we'll be competing with evolution in situ, and at a great distance. Machines break, but they also do just what you design them to do.
- dfar1 10y agoThe idea of colonizing another planets is so surreal it makes me wish I would live another 100 years. Having mars as our launch pad, I wonder where we could go from there.
- myowncrapulence 10y agoI'm sure there was someone in 1492 saying the same thing about America. The grass is always greener.
- wyager 10y agoI mean, they were right. Quality of life improved for the European colonizing nations. Not so much for the natives, but presumably we're not going to run into anyone already on mars.
- edblarney 10y agoLiving in North America is not that-that different from living in Europe. There is no 'green grass' on Mars, literally or metaphorically. There isn't even any 'air'.
- myowncrapulence 10y agoHe was talking about his personal perception of the future not the technicalities of existence. Jesus the level of poindexter in even philosophical pleasantries is suffocating on HN.
- wyager 10y agoStrictly speaking, it should be possible for humans to go interstellar using current technology. Practically speaking, it's not, due to the partial nuclear test ban treaty. Here's a good start to that Wikipedia hole: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propu...
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
- imron 10y ago> The harsh conditions on Mars might make such unlikely events more probable if the outcome—say, bright orange skin—was very beneficial. Make Mars Great Again.
- jack9 10y agoThis is pretty backwards. We will genetically engineer humans to live on Mars. This is the only way it can work. Any genetic drift would be optimized and changed by the same biotechnology, so there's no chance that a new species would be created in less than a millenia.
- fao_ 10y agoGenetically engineering someone to live on Mars could itself create enough of a difference that a new species could be created
- logfromblammo 10y agoIf the engineering is done correctly, the new models remain backward-compatible with the old.
- jack9 10y agoYes, but that wasn't covered by the article. The title references post-speciation.
- hourislate 10y agoIt looks like we have to overcome the technological hurdles of creating gravity and some kind of shielding (invisible) that can protect humans from radiation. Steady power would be required. Curious if wind power could be used. If Musk could send a rocket to Mars that was basically a huge wind turbine that would anchor itself and unfold its blades, couldn't it create enough power to provide for a small contingent of people? Add some solar and there could be an abundance of power. With a good source of plentiful and steady power it would certainly make this endeavor more possible.
- wanda 10y ago> creating gravity As an aside, I can't help but feel that harnessing gravity would open up far more exciting possibilities than colonizing/inhabiting Mars.
- gnode 10y agoArtificial gravity can be created with a centrifuge, and pretty much anything with mass will shield you from radiation. Currently making a centrifugal spacecraft lined with radiation shielding would be too costly. The cost efficiency of rapidly reusable spacecraft could make such solutions to these problems affordable.
- lxmorj 10y agoUse an asteroid?
- amorphid 10y agoCould Mars ever be terraformed to the point a human, or human derivative, could operate comfortably in the open atmosphere? It seems pretty cold, air pressure is low, and there's little-to-no protection from solar radiation.
- kogepathic 10y agoLikely no. Because Mars lacks a magnetic field to protect fragile meatbags from cosmic radiation. [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars
- Justanothernick 10y agoYes this is true, but there are pockets of very strong magnetic fields which could presumably "help" protect small stations and camps of us squishy little carbon bags of water. http://mgs-mager.gsfc.nasa.gov/images.html http://mgs-mager.gsfc.nasa.gov/images.html
- cardine 10y agoWe'd likely be able to colonize the atmosphere of Venus before we'd be able to terraform Mars.
- Damian_Reloaded 10y agoGiving Mars an atmosphere is pretty much out of the question. Even digging a 20km deep hole in Hellas Planitia to achieve a pressure above the Armstrong limit is more plausible.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dyeje 10y agoReminds me of The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov. The third part of the book takes place on the moon where there is a divergent human species / society. Great book, and there are some really interesting thoughts on how two divergent human species would chafe against one another in that part of it.
- mmanfrin 10y agoYes, but they will be closer to Earthers than the Belters will be, sa sa? (The Expanse covers ideas like this; inner planets (Earth and Mars) are more like-now human, but those who grew up on space stations and asteroids, aka 'Belters', are physically different, taller, lankier)
- molsongolden 10y agoAwesome to see this in the comments. The Expanse does a neat job of working through some socio-political thought experiments.
- irremediable 10y agoI highly recommend Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. Great scifi books about a vaguely realistic Mars settlement, and the cultural/biological changes that occur.
- sharkjacobs 10y agoAnd then read Aurora, also by Robinson, to promptly crush all your dreams of terraforming mars and settling other solar systems!
- erispoe 10y agoI never could get beyond the first dozens of pages, I was very annoyed by the way Robinson paints broad group of people as having homogeneous traits (the "arabs" living in a martian kasbah and depicted as backward people). Does it get past that?
- irremediable 10y agoDid you start with the first book? I wouldn't have thought it would start with that stuff, because Mars isn't colonised at the start of the series. IMO it is better than that most of the time, in any case.
- macawfish 10y agoI'm surprised at how little criticism I hear about the colonization of Mars. Interfering with the evolutionary development of an entire planet should be a huge consideration. But it's colonialism as usual.