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Sex on Mars is going to be risky, but it could create a new human subspecies
In a new research paper published in Futures, an international team of scientists examines the challenges of reproduction on the Martian surface. It's a risky proposition, but if humans succeed in conceiving, carrying, and birthing offspring on another world it might actually be the start of a new species.
In the paper, the researchers tackle a huge number of potential problems that could crop up when humans are finally ready to rear young on Mars. The first and most obvious hurdle is the low gravity environment, which could pose a serious threat to the conception and pregnancy processes that seem so simple here on Earth.
[...] The paper also examines the inherent challenges of bolstering the numbers of a small colony of settlers on the planet. The concept of "love" might have to take a back seat to pure survival, with men and women being paired up by their biology rather than emotion. Additionally, some individuals may never be allowed to have children due to undesirable traits that are a risk to the colony as a whole.
In a somewhat scary aside, the researchers also note that editing the genes of future Mars babies might be an easy way to increase the prospects of survival.
Also at Live Science.
Biological and social challenges of human reproduction in a long-term Mars base (DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2018.04.006) (DX)
Related: Space colonization and suffering risks: Reassessing the "maxipok rule" (DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2018.04.008) (DX)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @01:30PM (13 children)
Before we figure out whether the gravity is enough or not, shouldn't we figure out what people are going to do there? If there are no jobs left on Earth, are there magically going to be Mars burger flipping jobs? The American colonies originally supplied tar sap to Britain for their Naval fleet, then later sugar. What does Mars have other than perchlorates and a nice vacuum outside?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday May 31 2018, @01:37PM
Sure, there will probably have to be some kind of incentive more then just "doing it cause we can", science might be one such thing and mining another one. Isn't it Elon that has said that the first people we send there will probably meet certain death (which I guess we all will) but they are needed just to settle the place and build up the basic infrastructure that future generations might need or require, and not necessarily future generations created on Mars. For all we know they might prefer them sterile, not to mention if it's going to be building required they are probably going to send more men then women so for all we know Mars might just turn into one big gay colony in space.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 31 2018, @01:45PM (7 children)
It's completely unregulated real estate and resources. If you can bear the large initial costs of getting to and setting up facilities on Mars, you can live off the land and conduct whatever kind of industrial or research activity you want to.
The investment required will drop dramatically with BFR, and a lot more if you can wait a couple more decades, when reusable BFR or other spacecraft are routinely flying to Mars and back.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @02:54PM (6 children)
People can't even live off the land on Earth with warm air, blue skies, water and fertile soil. If they could, why aren't they? There are millions of unoccupied ha on Earth for sale next to nothing and people say they can't live without a living wage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @03:47PM (5 children)
Are you talking about Antarctica by chance? I'm definitely interested in homesteading there. After you, of course.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @04:02PM (3 children)
Australia and the US that I've seen.
https://www.aol.com/2010/10/19/click-here-for-free-land-five-places-where-land-is-free/ [aol.com]
http://www.cheaplandinamerica.com/sd.php [cheaplandinamerica.com]
https://morningchores.com/free-land/ [morningchores.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @07:21PM (2 children)
There's no free land in the US. Homesteading was mostly finished by the early 20th century, although it was possible in Alaska until the 1980s. People with an agenda like to complain that mining claims are "free," but you don't really own those as it's no longer possible to obtain "patented" claims.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @06:41AM
It wasn't free, but my land was purchased with the equivalent of 1.5 weeks of work at minimum wage ($7.5/h) labor/ha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rgGEkI510Q [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @06:43AM
(PS, that's not me)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @02:51AM
Antarctica is more hospitable than Mars in many ways. Enough so that penguins and moss can live on some parts unaided.
There's hardly any atmosphere on Mars, water will boil away in most parts:
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast29jun_1m [nasa.gov]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_limit [wikipedia.org]
So those vast tracts of land on Mars can't be used for growing crops and raising livestock without pressurized shelters.
You'd need to build similar stuff to what you'd need for space station colonies. Thus Mars has very few advantages compared to a space station or one of the "nicer" asteroids. Especially since Mars is a bigger gravity well that's far more expensive to go down and up from.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @07:56PM (1 child)
Well since you don't even know that Mars has an atmosphere I'm not sure it is worth investing any thought into this little experiment.
Ok fine, I"ll stick with the easy one. Creating a new colony in the solar system has immense benefits, one of which is a smaller gravity well so maybe Mars will be our spaceship yard to more easily harvest asteroid resources.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @06:48AM
For all intents and purposes for biological activity, it's a vacuum. Placed on the surface, the teardrops on your eyes and the saliva on your tongue build boil and you'd lose consciousness in ten seconds. The same thing that would happen if you were placed in a hard vacuum.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @08:17AM (1 child)
Not really. You like many others are assuming the best destination is Mars without enough scientific evidence.
We need to do the gravity experiments first. Humans will need to do them anyway to figure out the minimum gravity that is enough. Because there are other places in our Solar System than just Mars. Once we better know what we need then we can figure out which places are worth considering and what sort of space stations are needed. The less gravity we need the cheaper the space stations can be. It may turn out that Moon gravity levels are enough for humans, in which case the Moon would be an even better destination than Mars (Mars atmosphere close enough to a vacuum that it's not an advantage over the Moon).
Those experiments are not cheap, but neither is going to Mars. But if the experiments are done properly the results are likely to be useful for many generations of space-faring humans.
If we ever become a species that outlives our star that would be a notable achievement. We're unlikely to succeed with that, but we will certainly fail if we keep wasting lots of resources and time on doing stupid stuff. Knowing the minimum amount of gravity most humans need is important for that long path. If we don't even intend to outlive our planet then there's not much point wasting money with Mars missions. If we don't intend to outlive our star but intend to outlive our planet it actually makes more sense to spend our resources making Earth more habitable than trying to make an inhospitable planet like Mars habitable.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 01 2018, @11:56AM
That's not remotely relevant. One could argue, for example, that we'll be more technologically developed in a 100 million years and thus, it would make more sense to do Mars missions then, even if we are planning to outlive our star.
A more relevant argument is that there's a bunch of people who want to see humans living off of Earth in a human life time. That at least contains a rationalization, good or not, for why we should do something now rather than in the far distant future.