Colonizing Mars by Tweaked DNA

Will Colonizing Mars Require Humanity to Tweak its DNA



If humanity is ever going to settle down on Mars, we may need to become a little less human.

Crewed missions to Mars, which NASA wants to start flying in the 2030s, will be tough on astronauts, exposing them to high radiation loads, bone-wasting microgravity and other hazards for several years at a time. But these pioneers should still be able to make it back to Earth in relatively good nick, agency officials have said. It might be a different story for those who choose not to come home, however. If we want to stay safe and healthy while living permanently on Mars, or any other world beyond our home planet, we may need to make some tweaks to our species' basic blueprint, experts say. Genetic engineering and other advanced technologies "may need to come into play if people want to live and work and thrive, and establish their family, and stay on Mars," Kennda Lynch, an astrobiologist and geomicrobiologist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, said on May 12 during a webinar hosted by the New York Academy of Sciences called "Alienating Mars: Challenges of Space Colonization."

Can Mars be colonized by humans?

Colonization of Mars would require a wide variety of equipment—both equipment to directly provide services to humans and production equipment used to produce food, propellant, water, energy and breathable oxygen—in order to support human colonization efforts.

What would happen if humans evolved on Mars?

Mars has almost no atmosphere and none of it is oxygen, which means that it is 100 per cent fatal to everyone. You'll have three minutes to evolve to breathe CO2 before you suffocate, and after that you won't make any further contribution to the gene pool.

The colonization of Mars is as instinctive to our species as the Migration Period, the Age of Exploration, and the establishment of North American colonies. The nomads, conquistadors, and Protestant settlers of yesteryears ventured into the unknown, without concrete business plans, models, or accurate predictions of the future. Their motivations were diverse - some sought gold, others aspired for fame and power, and a few escaped from oppressive regimes. The result was a transformative era for humanity, giving rise to a world that was new, improved, and more advanced.

 

Will Colonizing Mars Require Humanity to Tweak its DNA

We have discussed this article with Robert Zubrin, the President of the Mars Society and the author of the book ‘The Case for Mars’ and his perspective on Mars colonization. Zubrin pointed out that when humanity ventures into a new environment, different from the one we're accustomed to, it often triggers a surge of innovation. He cited the example of European expansion into America, which spurred inventions like caravel and refrigeration, among others, that wasn't much necessitated in Europe by that time. The use of a steam engine has found greater distribution in North America where the distances between settlements were larger than in Europe. He suggested that migrating to Mars could kick-start an advanced trajectory of human development, far surpassing our current state. Intriguingly, he added that we can't fully anticipate all the discoveries this might entail.

 

Migration: A Fundamental Norm of Human Civilization

For hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors traversed the Earth, driven by the need for food, the avoidance of predators, and the search for refuge from natural disasters. Migration was an ongoing process; generations were born, matured, and passed away during this ceaseless journey. The primary motivations for this movement were the varying natural and climatic conditions.