![]() ![]() ![]() The genes could, for instance, make bones superhumanly strong, or ramp up the repairing of DNA strands sundered by radiation. Increasingly feasible due to galloping advances in medicine and biotechnology, this enhancement would involve altering genes to render would-be astronauts more robust against the ravages of space. Current countermeasures such as exercise, diet and radiation shielding could fall far short in keeping astronauts healthily productive on extended expeditions to the moon, Mars and destinations unbound.Ī radical-sounding solution, now gaining traction in academia, is biologically enhancing people for space travel. Those embarking on longer-duration missions outside of the relative protection of low Earth orbit, and thus out past our planet’s radiation-diverting magnetosphere, would likely have greater damage inflicted. These brave explorers have not suffered, it seems, any serious, lasting deficits. Yet during their record-setting, yearlong stays on space stations, astronauts and cosmonauts have dealt with myriad health problems due to exposure to weightlessness and radiation. Spacecraft technology can supply the basics: food, air, water and shelter. It’s fitting that many cultures place gods in the heavens above, for living beyond Earth does indeed require a degree of supernaturality. Adam Hadhazy checks in on this nascent idea. Gene therapy could one day make it possible to biologically enhance humans to live and work in deep space. Homo sapiens astronauta By Adam Hadhazy | July/August 2019 ![]()
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