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We have a small sample size of humans who have been exposed to space. I wonder what human mutations will be more preferable for space travel. Physical fitness i
by fumar 7y ago
We have a small sample size of humans who have been exposed to space. I wonder what human mutations will be more preferable for space travel. Physical fitness is part of the equation but so is genetic-space compatibility.
- scottie_m 7y agoAgreed. Genentic engineering will probably be helpful, but first we do as you say, have to know what to engineer for. Then of course we’ll have a kind of speciation event and we’ll risk having a kind of genetic apartheid based on people who work in space vs. planetside. It could get sci-fi dystopia levels of ugly if we don’t work to prevent those outcomes.
- wongarsu 7y agoWe already limit astronauts and many other professions based on genetic properties: height, tollerance to high g-forces, eyesight etc. Even things used as health indicators like resting blood pressure are influenced to a significant degree by genetics. I think we will survive adding a few more genetic properties to the job requirements, especially since jobs on planets will vastly outnumber jobs in outer space for the forseeable future.
- wil421 7y agoSounds like Gattaca. It a very slippery slope when you start to genetically engineering people.
- steve76 7y agoMaybe we don't have to go? The particles we refract get heavier. Eventually we'll smash a beam together and what comes out will have it's own gravity. That black hole is 55 million light years away. Perhaps we don't need to go there to get particles to react to it. Get good enough and that old light has some gravity assist to it. Maybe there is some data in that black hole that allows us to point a telescope on the tangent of our solar system, or galaxy and simulate pair production for very fine control of gravitational waves? At some level, our bodies must respond to gravity. Not that they have mind, or are programmed, but they just fall into the place that's empty because of what's around us. If gravitational waves moved the end of a laser, I wonder what control of it can do to really fine nerve endings or mitosis. Perhaps that's what's missing, precision.
- zamalek 7y agoHow do you engineer for space? Increasing telomere length is merely a stop-gap. Random mutations due to solar radiation are exactly the mechanism that evolution exploits to make progress (as well as other sources of entropy), the chemical makeup of DNA is poorly suited to space travel: you can't just genetically engineer that way.
- L_226 7y agoYou shorten the inter-generational period, i.e. make people breed rapidly (in space). The mutations will take of themselves.