Posted on 05/20/2020 8:49:42 AM PDT by BenLurkin
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...
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... "Maybe we use some of them."
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.
Genetic engineering almost certainly won't be restricted to pioneering astronauts and colonists. Recent advances in synthetic biology herald a future in which "designer microbes" help colonists establish a foothold on the Red Planet...
"These are some of the things that we can actually do to help us make things we need, help us make materials to build our habitats," she said. "And these are a lot of things that scientists are researching right now to create these kinds of things for our trip to Mars."
Some researchers and exploration advocates have even suggested using designer microbes to terraform Mars, turning it into a world much more comfortable for humans. This possibility obviously raises big ethical questions, especially considering that Mars may have hosted life in the ancient past and might still host it today, in subsurface lakes or aquifers.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Naah . Just send Democrat Congress critters and senators. They already had it done
Naah . Just send Democrat Congress critters and senators. They already had it done
When we find a planet that is at the extreme edge of the ‘goldilocks zone’ that is also financially feasible to colonize, it would probably be reasonable to genetically tweak the colonists in a way that allows them to be a bit more comfortable while living there. A little more tolerance to heat if the planet is closer to it’s sun or maybe slightly larger lung capacity is the air is thinner. Any of those are reasonable.
What could possibly go wrong?
I support instead an armada of robotic space tugboats sent into the oort cloud to begin pushing ice comets towards Mars to increase it’s mass and water content.
Then we need to wrap the planet in a coil of metal and turn it into a giant electromagnet to protect from radiation.
Man is never going to Mars because its cost prohibitive....especially with $6T national debt levels.
If we are going to modify DNA, can we make women less insane and more agreeable?
The best part of conquering the unknown, is that we do it
in our own frail, god-given /or/ evolutionary, bodies.
I wouldn’t be so quick as to categorize a DNA modified space
explorer as ‘human,’ even if we did the splicing ourselves, but you may feel differently.
“..one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
takes on an altogether altered meaning, no?
“Less human than human” could be our new mantra?
Just something to ponder, my freepkins.
Excavate a deep enough pit mine, and the atmosphere would collect within at a higher pressure. We are speaking of many miles deep to achieve an appreciable effect of this sort.
This is actually an active area of research in China. They have set a national goal of moving into space and eclipsing our space program by 2049. Being able to travel into the low gravity and high radiation environment of space would give them a vast evolutionary advantage over humans that could not survive as well under the same conditions. Remember, China thinks much longer term than the West.
Available atmospheric oxygen: Mars, almost none; Antarctica - roughly 20%.
Available surface water: Mars, almost none; Antarctica - it’s everywhere.
Available food sources: Mars, none; Antarctica - seals, penguins, fish and the like.
Available resources: Mars, who knows; Antarctica - how much ice you willing to move?
Ability to get there: Mars, keep dreaming; Antarctica - got a boat?
Average temperature: Mars, about -80 degrees F; Antarctica, -76 degrees F - and rising, if you luck into some global warming.
Yeah, let’s all go to Mars.
I will NEVER inject myself with a DNA-altering substance and you shouldn’t either. The Mark of the Beast is coming and will be packaged in some desirable way, but once separated from the human gene pool, all hope is lost. Jesus came as a human and died as a human. Only humans can be saved as we are all genetically linked. Break the link and break the ability to be saved.
On another note, studies have shown that altering the DNA is not stable and can have permanent and unsuspected results.
Bad idea!
I will be dirt
“There is a theory that Mars was once one of the moons of a large watery planet called Tiamat. Something caused that planet to decompose sending its moons into sun orbits and a mass of water splashed into one hemisphere of Mars causing the planet to tilt dozens of degrees and forming the distinct surface features of two hemispheres so different in contours. The theory goes on to imagine MArs was like a Disney land place for a civilization to visit and marvel at.”
More if you find Sitchin interesting. https://www.sitchinstudies.com/sumerian-solar-system.html
true dat
I have been saying multiple times on a couple science blogs that humans, as we presently know ourselves, will not colonize Mars.
Humans cannot live outside in the Marian environment without a “spacesuit” or something similar, and humans are not going to live as “colonizers” in protected enclosures above ground, below ground or in caves. That might have been fine for Neanderthals or earlier, not humans.
Mars will be for human scientist explorers, only, and their stays will be limited. That, and robotics, drones, satellites and such will satisfy the human need to explore. There is no driving need for genetic modifications of humans. It is only something that satisfies utopian scientific fantasies, not humanity.
Exactly. I laugh even harder when certain “science” pubs announce some astronomers claim they have found another “earth like” planet, that is “only” X light years away.
I laugh because of the hilarity of what some silly scientists and some silly science publications consider what qualifies as “earth like”. Most often they think some orb that is revolving around some sun at a similar distance from that sun as earth’s orbit around our sun qualifies that orb for the designation “earth like”. They get away with ignoring all the attributes of a planet that have gone into making our earth “earth like”. They pretend one single similarity qualifies as “earth like”. They don’t deserve the designation “scientists”.
Once we’re on Mars, that debt becomes Earth’s problem.
Uh...it is over 30 trillion +.
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