MAY 2019. DISCOVER 41“We found that in all the female mice that were exposed to
spaceflight from 12 to 15 days, the corpora lutea were either totally
absent or there were very, very few,” Tash says. That means potential
reproductive problems emerged after just two weeks in orbit.
Next year, he plans to send live female mice on a 30- to 37-day trip
to the ISS. By examining their reproductive cycle, which takes mere
weeks to go from conception to birth, Tash aims to finally figure out
why mice have trouble reproducing in space.
Woodruff, who’s also the director for the Center for Reproductive
Sciences at Northwestern, is going one step further and planning
research with human embryos. If she can find funding, the experi-
ment would move beyond mice and send frozen human eggs and
sperm to space to see if they can lead to a pregnancy.
It would be easy to tell if it happens. Woodruff and a team of
researchers recently discovered the zinc spark — a flash of zinc
that shines from an egg the moment it’s fertilized. As an indicator
of pregnancy, the zinc spark could let Woodruff actually see the first
stages of human life in space.DISTORTED MARTIAN REALITY
Woodruff and Tash are starting to work with human reproductive
cells; however, they agree that full-fledged human trials, involving
viable pregnancy and childbirth in space, lie in the distant future.
Even if it’s decades down the road, Konrad Szocik, an assis-
tant professor of philosophy at the University of Information
Technology and Management in Poland, thinks we should already
start bracing ourselves for the harsh realities of reproduction in
space. In a paper published last year in the journal Futures, he
spells out the non-scientific implications of having babies in a
settlement on Mars.
“We may expect that Martian population will be task- and goal-
oriented,” Szocik says. “It is possible that particular, individual
interests and benefits will be totally subordinated to the benefits of
the group. It may be seen as problematic in such areas like individual
freedom and personal decisions, but also in sexual and reproductive
life — something that goes against ethical standards and moral
intuitions of the West.”
To create a healthy population in a low-gravity, radiation-riddled
world, Szocik says that mission planners shouldn’t rule out things
like gene editing, genetic pre-selection of sexual partners and a
structured reproduction policy — ideas that qualify as eugenics on
Earth. Even with these precautions, of course, babies could still be
born with disabilities and, with very limited resources, a martian
society might not be able to care for them.
“Abortion and sexual policy in general may be applied in space
in a much broader extent than on Earth,” Szocik says. “Successful
survival in space may require radical, currently unacceptable and/or
controversial decisions and actions.”
However contentious its policies may be, creating a settlement
beyond Earth would mark a revolutionary step for humanity. The
road to becoming an interplanetary species is a hazardous one, and
it’s been taken as a cautious crawl rather than a reckless run. We’ve
inched our way toward innovative yet incremental experiments, but
we’re still miles away from the risky research that separates us from
our lustful martian dream.^ DAmber Jorgenson is an assistant editor at Discover.Home Sweet Home
Earth and Mars might be neighbors, but conditions on the
two worlds differ drastically. Humans are accustomed to
Earth’s abundant sunshine, hefty gravity and the protection of
our atmosphere and magnetic field.
The Red Planet, on the other hand, has frigid temperatures,
a mere fraction of Earth’s gravity and is not protected from
hazardous radiation. When stacked up, life on Mars might
make you rethink your dream of becoming an astronaut.Earth Mars
ATMOSPHERE
Nitrogen Carbon dioxide
77% 95.32%
Oxygen Nitrogen
21% 2.7%
Argon Argon
1% 1.6%
Carbon Oxygen
dioxide 0.13%
0.038% Water vapor
Other 0.03%
0.962% Nitric oxide
0.01%
Other
0.21%GRAVITY
2.66 times 0.375 times
that of Mars that of EarthAVERAGE DISTANCE FROM SUN
92,955,820 miles 142,633,260 milesAVERAGE SURFACE TEMPERATURE
57 degrees F -81 degrees FWATER COMPOSITIONAVERAGE RADIATION LEVELS
(shown in millisieverts, a unit that measures radiation exposure;
1 mSv equals about three chest X-rays)
3.1 mSv per year 266.7 mSv per yearPROTECTION FROM
SOLAR RADIATION
(the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the atmosphere)
23% NegligibleWater ice exists on the
surface and underground,
with tiny amounts of water
vapor in the atmosphere.
Researchers think that liquid
water could exist below the
surface.Abundant, flowing water on
both the surface and below.
Water vapor is prevalent in
the atmosphere, and water
ice exists in frozen regions.EA
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