Can Humans Have Babies In Space? SpaceBorn United Wants To Find Out (technologyreview.com) 105
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Egbert Edelbroek was acting as a sperm donor when he first wondered whether it's possible to have babies in space. Curious about the various ways that donated sperm can be used, Edelbroek, a Dutch entrepreneur, began to speculate on whether in vitro fertilization technology was possible beyond Earth -- or could even be improved by the conditions found there. Could the weightlessness of space be better than a flat laboratory petri dish? Now Edelbroek is CEO of SpaceBorn United, a biotech startup seeking to pioneer the study of human reproduction away from Earth. Next year, he plans to send a mini lab on a rocket into low Earth orbit, where in vitro fertilization, or IVF, will take place. If it succeeds, Edelbroek hopes his work could pave the way for future space settlements.
"Humanity needs a backup plan," he says. "If you want to be a sustainable species, you want to be a multiplanetary species." Beyond future space colonies, there is also a more pressing need to understand the effects of space on the human reproductive system. No one has ever become pregnant in space -- yet. But with the rise of space tourism, it's likely that it will eventually happen one day. Edelbroek thinks we should be prepared. Despite the burgeoning interest in deep space exploration and settlement, prompted in part by billionaires such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, we still know very little about what happens to our reproductive biology when we're in orbit. A report released in September by the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine points out that almost no research has been done on human reproduction in space, adding that our understanding of how space affects reproduction is "vital to long-term space exploration, but largely unexplored to date."
Some studies on animals have suggested that the various stages of reproduction -- from mating and fertilization to embryo development, implantation, pregnancy, and birth -- can function normally in space. For example, in the very first such experiment, eight Japanese medaka fish developed from egg to hatchling aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 1994. All eight survived the return to Earth and seemed to behave normally.Yet other studies have found evidence that points to potential problems. Pregnant rats that spent much of their third trimester -- a total of five days -- on a Soviet satellite in 1983 experienced complications during labor and delivery. Like all astronauts returning to Earth, the rats were exhausted and weak. Their deliveries lasted longer than usual, likely because of atrophied uterine muscles. All the pups in one of the litters died during delivery, the result of an obstruction thought to be due in part to the mother's weakened state.
To Edelbroek, these inconclusive results point to a need to systematically isolate each step in the reproductive process in order to better understand how it is affected by conditions like lower gravity and higher radiation exposure. The mini lab his company developed is designed to do exactly that. It is about the size of a shoebox and uses microfluidics to connect a chamber containing sperm to a chamber containing an egg. It can also rotate at different speeds to replicate the gravitational environment of Earth, the moon, or Mars. It is small enough to fit inside a capsule that can be housed on top of a rocket and launched into space.After the egg has been fertilized in the device, it splits into two cells, each of which divides again to form four cells and so on. After five to six days, the embryo reaches a stage known as a blastocyst, which looks like a hollow ball. At this point, the embryos in the mini lab will be cryogenically frozen for their return to Earth.
"Humanity needs a backup plan," he says. "If you want to be a sustainable species, you want to be a multiplanetary species." Beyond future space colonies, there is also a more pressing need to understand the effects of space on the human reproductive system. No one has ever become pregnant in space -- yet. But with the rise of space tourism, it's likely that it will eventually happen one day. Edelbroek thinks we should be prepared. Despite the burgeoning interest in deep space exploration and settlement, prompted in part by billionaires such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, we still know very little about what happens to our reproductive biology when we're in orbit. A report released in September by the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine points out that almost no research has been done on human reproduction in space, adding that our understanding of how space affects reproduction is "vital to long-term space exploration, but largely unexplored to date."
Some studies on animals have suggested that the various stages of reproduction -- from mating and fertilization to embryo development, implantation, pregnancy, and birth -- can function normally in space. For example, in the very first such experiment, eight Japanese medaka fish developed from egg to hatchling aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 1994. All eight survived the return to Earth and seemed to behave normally.Yet other studies have found evidence that points to potential problems. Pregnant rats that spent much of their third trimester -- a total of five days -- on a Soviet satellite in 1983 experienced complications during labor and delivery. Like all astronauts returning to Earth, the rats were exhausted and weak. Their deliveries lasted longer than usual, likely because of atrophied uterine muscles. All the pups in one of the litters died during delivery, the result of an obstruction thought to be due in part to the mother's weakened state.
To Edelbroek, these inconclusive results point to a need to systematically isolate each step in the reproductive process in order to better understand how it is affected by conditions like lower gravity and higher radiation exposure. The mini lab his company developed is designed to do exactly that. It is about the size of a shoebox and uses microfluidics to connect a chamber containing sperm to a chamber containing an egg. It can also rotate at different speeds to replicate the gravitational environment of Earth, the moon, or Mars. It is small enough to fit inside a capsule that can be housed on top of a rocket and launched into space.After the egg has been fertilized in the device, it splits into two cells, each of which divides again to form four cells and so on. After five to six days, the embryo reaches a stage known as a blastocyst, which looks like a hollow ball. At this point, the embryos in the mini lab will be cryogenically frozen for their return to Earth.
Hot Take (Score:4, Funny)
Hopefully not.
We don't need to export this trash to the rest of the universe.
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Re: Hot Take (Score:2, Offtopic)
mankind hating incel spotted.
the solar system, and most the universe is full of lifeless resources. It is mostly garbage already, ashes of supernova and colliding degenerate stars.
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and why do you think he (or she) is an incel? She (or he) could have a far better sex life than you, and still have no interest in having children. The conditions are orthogonal.
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Referring to human race as trash while not having children is different matter, that is incel territory. The only healthy sex they might be having is with themselves, they are fundamentally broken in having any kind of friendship let alone romance or sexual relations.
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You sir, deserve the "bigot" hat which you have awarded to yourself.
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No I think people referring to other humans as trash are fundamentally flawed and can't have normal relationships.
You seem to have chip on your shoulder and are looking for place to vent some kind of sexual identity ideology in places where it is totally irrelevant. The LGBQAT-AH (AH is attack helicopter) conference is ten doors down the hall and to your left. Protip, don't stick your dick in intake of turbocopter while it's running.
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You have to see the upside of it. Considering the distances and the speeds we're capable of, that trash will likely disappear somewhere between the stars.
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Considering the distances and the speeds we're capable of, that trash will likely disappear somewhere between the stars.
Like that plastic bottle in the ocean, right?
Re: Hot Take (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. Only in an empty sea, not one teaming with life. So, you know, very different.
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Re: Hot Take (Score:3)
We can be very certain of that within our solar system, especially in direction toward the sun. It will be centuries before we can rationally worry about polluting interstellar space. Plus the cube rate expansion of space as we travel outward means there just is not enough mass on all of Earth to meaningfully pollute space. Even ground to dust and spread out, you couldnâ(TM)t pollute our solar system with Earth.
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Re:Hot Take (Score:4, Interesting)
Hopefully not.
We don't need to export this trash to the rest of the universe.
Fermi filter: pastoralist luddites stay home nd kill themselves off in wars over resources and faith while the adventurous part of the species colonizes space and has the good sense to do it quietly.
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Hopefully not.
We don't need to export this trash to the rest of the universe.
Fermi filter: pastoralist luddites stay home nd kill themselves off in wars over resources and faith while the adventurous part of the species colonizes space and has the good sense to do it quietly.
Please list all examples of human migration/exploration/colonization over the past 20,000 years.
Tag each entry as either "quiet, peaceful adventuring" or "driven by war, territoriality, avarice for more resources, viral religious zeal, etc."
Tell us the percentage breakdown between the two.
Now revisit your thinking on which direction this Fermi Filter will work.
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When settlement means just invading adjacent land, any band of thugs can do it.
When settlement requires developing the blue-water shipbuilding skills it takes to reach new continents, a certain commitment to long-term civilization is required.
When settlement requires developing science and implementing trustworthy technology to survive in totally alien environments, and then sticking to whatever form of social organization makes it possible to colonize planets and mine asteroids, a still higher level of civ
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When settlement means just invading adjacent land, any band of thugs can do it.
And that's who did it. Thugs.
When settlement requires developing the blue-water shipbuilding skills it takes to reach new continents, a certain commitment to long-term civilization is required.
And the ones who did it were long-term civilized thugs who robbed/raped/murdered/conquered their way across the new continents. The fact that their leaders back home were sipping brandy from fancy glasses and commissioning beautiful cathedrals doesn't magically make them not thugs.
When settlement requires developing science and implementing trustworthy technology to survive in totally alien environments, and then sticking to whatever form of social organization makes it possible to colonize planets and mine asteroids, a still higher level of civilization is required.
Yes, a higher level of "civilization" as in new technology. And what will that new technology be used for? History leaves no doubt.
But if you're one of those people who sets no value on civilization, or perhaps even no value on the worthiness of humanity in comparison to any other species, you have already failed the first filter. You're not even in the game.
If you're one of those eager STEM nerds who set all their value on the
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"has the good sense to do it quietly"
yes, human beings are justly famous for their good sense & being quiet
If you are relying on gravity to deliver the baby, (Score:2)
... you probably have enough already.
#montypythoncatholics [youtube.com]
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... you probably have enough already. #montypythoncatholics [youtube.com]
In the US babies are usually delivered by a mother supine (lying down) in a hospital bed. In other parts of the world you are more likely to see women standing/squatting/kneeling to deliver with the assistance of gravity. Chimps do it too.
Supine position (Score:2)
And as a note, the supine position in the USA is primarily for the doctor's ease in accessing the area. Not because it is easier on the mother.
Though I've seen birthing beds/chairs that are more upright these days.
How about we don't? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Humanity needs a backup plan," he says. "If you want to be a sustainable species, you want to be a multiplanetary species."
We're not even a good fucking single planet species. This kind of shit is some massive cart before the horse shit. Oh like those people thinking we need flying cars. We can't even in two dimensions with cars without killing tens of thousands each year. There is zero need to add an additional dimension to that.
I remember this one professor in college talking about the reality of Star Trek transporters. "People bail the second a fax machine jams. Imagine what they will do if you're lower half ends up in Abu Dhabi and your upper half gets to Chicago?" These people worrying about what happens if some meteor starts hurling its way towards us. The answer is, we just look at each other and say we had a good run. Maybe put a paper sack over our heads for all it's worth. Look around us, there is no need to be exporting this bullshit onto other planets. The universe will be a-okay without us.
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Re:How about we don't? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: How about we don't? (Score:2)
For now, this is true. Research is in progress on terraforming, station construction, and cryo storage (where we wait for Earth to settle after meteor strike). Decades to centuries of work remaining, but we start now.
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Why you so mad, cute cumdumpster turned into a hideous ball and chain that threatens to take 50%?
Greetings, recent divorce victim. Grab a beer and a cookie. It gets better.
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sounds like triggered incel talk. you know you lose an inch of penis length for every 35 pounds you're overweight? soon you won't even be able to jack off any more and will have to pee sitting down
Re:How about we don't? (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably the most important benefit to humanity of manned Mars exploration programs will be the way it drives home how critical Earth's biosphere is for sustaining human life. Once we've seen some people experience what life is like without a biosphere, we'll value what we have here a bit more.
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"Where I live, tab water is safe to drink and tastes good."
What I live, Tab is a zero calorie soft drink. We do enjoy safe and clean TAP water though. We even use it in toilets. I bet you use Brawndo.
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"Humanity needs a backup plan," he says. "If you want to be a sustainable species, you want to be a multiplanetary species."
We're not even a good fucking single planet species. This kind of shit is some massive cart before the horse shit. Oh like those people thinking we need flying cars. We can't even in two dimensions with cars without killing tens of thousands each year. There is zero need to add an additional dimension to that.
Actually we can. Flying is one of the safest forms of transport there is.
The US has the road fatalities of a 3rd world country because it treats driving as a right, not a privilege.. Get rid of that entitlement mentality and you'll enjoy road fatality rates as low as other developed nations, maybe even as low as the UK.
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"Humanity needs a backup plan," he says. "If you want to be a sustainable species, you want to be a multiplanetary species."
We're not even a good fucking single planet species. This kind of shit is some massive cart before the horse shit. Oh like those people thinking we need flying cars. We can't even in two dimensions with cars without killing tens of thousands each year. There is zero need to add an additional dimension to that.
Actually we can. Flying is one of the safest forms of transport there is. The US has the road fatalities of a 3rd world country because it treats driving as a right, not a privilege.. Get rid of that entitlement mentality and you'll enjoy road fatality rates as low as other developed nations, maybe even as low as the UK.
If the US stopped giving licenses to every moron with a pulse, then we'd have to build out massive public transportation infrastructure. Also, I think testing people on their skill and knowledge of operating a 1.4 ton machine would be decried for being racist or classist or something.
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"Humanity needs a backup plan," he says. "If you want to be a sustainable species, you want to be a multiplanetary species."
We're not even a good fucking single planet species. This kind of shit is some massive cart before the horse shit. Oh like those people thinking we need flying cars. We can't even in two dimensions with cars without killing tens of thousands each year. There is zero need to add an additional dimension to that.
I remember this one professor in college talking about the reality of Star Trek transporters. "People bail the second a fax machine jams. Imagine what they will do if you're lower half ends up in Abu Dhabi and your upper half gets to Chicago?" These people worrying about what happens if some meteor starts hurling its way towards us. The answer is, we just look at each other and say we had a good run. Maybe put a paper sack over our heads for all it's worth. Look around us, there is no need to be exporting this bullshit onto other planets. The universe will be a-okay without us.
I read shit like this and I have to ask what happened to us? That whole comment says that some part of your psyche has been crushed or removed. The part of a human that craves hope, adventure, exploration, discovery? It's gone. Wiped away. And while there are a *LOT* of folks that say none of that should matter at all in the modern world? I feel a deep sadness for people that don't feel a little excitement at the prospect of humans getting "out there." Yes, the world is fucked up sometimes. But the concept
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If you really didn't already know: the answer to your rhetorical question is the rhetoric itself. Responses like that are what happened.
For three generations people have been saying "this is pretty awful, please stop," and the response has been "but I'm having such a great time! Why are you complaining?"
The problem isn't that people are too depressed to be curious, hopeful or appreciative of the human experience. The problem is that we're sick of having materialism, consumerism, and the whole European obs
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That whole comment says that some part of your psyche has been crushed or removed. The part of a human that craves hope, adventure, exploration, discovery? It's gone.
It's not gone it's just a realistic take on the matters that are currently on the ground. Much like how one would see storm clouds in the sky and say that rain may happen soon. It might, it might not, but it's not unreasonable to expect rain to happen with storm clouds, it's a logical conclusion given the current series of events.
I feel a deep sadness for people that don't feel a little excitement at the prospect of humans getting "out there."
Well yeah we can gush like middle schoolers about anything, but after that initial feeling dissipates we need to consider what we have in stock. Yeah, we can go out there and ex
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There is cause for worry and a lot of things to improve. But sometim
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"Maybe put a paper sack over our heads"
I know some people that would qualify as "two baggers".
A mainforld is a CEO? (Score:1)
> Edelbroek, a Dutch entrepreneur
What is it he's done?
> began to speculate.... Now Edelbroek is CEO
Him and everyone with $4.95 and the knowledge to file BE-A-CEO.COM.
Would you want to RISK YOUR UNBORN CHILD'S BIRTH with this guy who knows noting of medicine, babies, but thinks he's an entrepreneur and a CEO? Shit, if I had $1 for every time I hate a stupid idea to make money now and put an LLC together listing myself as CEO... I'd be one rich stupid idiot. Unlike this guy, who isn't rich.
Agin, WOU
Re:A mainforld is a CEO? (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, his project is more than just mental masturbation. He was acting as a sperm donor when he first came up with the idea. Taking things in hand, a load (of project ideas) suddenly popped out. Not everyone can provide such firm leadership in the face of stiff competition -- he deserves a helping hand to finish what he started.
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Epstein, Musk, this dude, rich guys and their weird Genghis Khan complexes..
That said someone needs to sit these guys down and explain there is an easier way. You don't space stations, weird mechanized impregnation facilities or anything of the sort - you just marry a nice Catholic girl. 4-8 kiddos right there, and all without attracting the attention of the international bio-ethics community.
It wont end up being cheap, but it won't be build a space station expensive either.
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Trump isn't rich either, and yet he became prez. I think this guy has a good chance of making it happen.
Oh, c'mon now, cut the poor guy some slack. Trump is rich alight. His problem is that he just isn't as rich as he'd like to be, in fact he isn't even as rich as he pretends to be, but he is rich.
Really dumb idea to use (Score:1)
human wombs for this. Really, really dumb and unsurprisingly being spouted by a man
eight Japanese medaka fish developed from egg to hatchling aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 1994. All eight survived the return to Earth and seemed to behave normally.Yet other studies have found evidence that points to potential problems. Pregnant rats that spent much of their third trimester -- a total of five days -- on a Soviet satellite in 1983 experienced complications during labor and delivery
Fish spawn are resilient. They pretty much have to be, given their natural environment. Their DNA incorporates a bunch of redundant development plans to overcome this. The womb reduced the need for this redundancy by controlling the environment
Here;s the thing. The human body sucks in low gravity. Given how traumatic preganancy and birth already is, the *last* thing you want to do is to attempt it with a severely impaired vas
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human wombs for this. Really, really dumb and unsurprisingly being spouted by a man
Umm, way to try to tun this into the patriarchy and it's systematic and brutal misogyny actions of all things against Birthing people.
Howbow we skip the narrative, because you had insightful content following the misandry?
Fish spawn are resilient. They pretty much have to be, given their natural environment. Their DNA incorporates a bunch of redundant development plans to overcome this.
Yes. Considering that fish live in what is more or less a weightless environment - not exactly, but close enough. The experimental results for fish are not surprising.
The womb reduced the need for this redundancy by controlling the environment
I think that it gets worse. In a hierarchy ranged from small to large, creatures at the small end, say insects - grav
I'm quite jaded (Score:2)
I'm trying - and failing - to imagine what woman would even volunteer for such an immoral and unethical experiment. Considering how it has failed badly on small creatures like rats, a human female would not very likely fare well after giving birth, and the child would have who knows what issues after birth, assuming it survived.
On the other hand, I'm quite jaded - I can easily picture a woman volunteering for this. You just need the right mix of hopefulness, greed, vanity, desire for notoriety, etc...
Keep in mind that you have roughly a billion potential candidates (~8B humans, 4B females, 2B in childbearing age, 1B without significant health problems preventing space flight and/or pregancy).
So a 0.0000001% rate will give you a woman willing to try it.
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I mean they have to test that too, right?
I hear the volunteer woman is Lizzo.
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I'm trying - and failing - to imagine what woman would even volunteer for such an immoral and unethical experiment. Considering how it has failed badly on small creatures like rats, a human female would not very likely fare well after giving birth, and the child would have who knows what issues after birth, assuming it survived.
On the other hand, I'm quite jaded - I can easily picture a woman volunteering for this. You just need the right mix of hopefulness, greed, vanity, desire for notoriety, etc...
Keep in mind that you have roughly a billion potential candidates (~8B humans, 4B females, 2B in childbearing age, 1B without significant health problems preventing space flight and/or pregancy).
So a 0.0000001% rate will give you a woman willing to try it.
I guess I should think generalizations, but yeah, you're correct, someone would. The reality Television world we live in tells us that.
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Who wouldn't want to own the first ever "facebook spacebaby". For extra $ you can sell the naming rights too.
Kind like Dolly the cloned sheep!
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Therefore, don't expose the human body to low gravity for more than a few hours at a time.
We know how to do this. People haven't done it, yet. But that doesn't make it impossible.
In low gravity? (Score:1)
We need volunteers... (Score:2)
For Science!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I'll volunteer.
Naive Schoolboy Dream (Score:5, Insightful)
"Humanity needs a backup plan," he says. "If you want to be a sustainable species, you want to be a multiplanetary species."
We need to put this naive schoolboy idea to bed.
There is no planet B.
There will be no planet A if we continue to fail to act on the climate emergency.
We have no right to take on another planet if we cannot look after our own.
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Of course there's no planet B, that's what people are concerned about. We could definitely colonize space and other planets, and it will probably take less than a few hundred years to do.
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Are you predicting that my prediction is wrong?
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Are you predicting that my prediction is wrong?
I absolutely predict that your prediction is absolutely wrong.
If we still don't have thriving human cities at
the north pole,
nor the south pole,
nor under the sea,
nor atop Denali,
then we are nowhere close to even beginning to have a micro-meteoroid sized chance of colonizing space and other planets.
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OK, check back with me in a few hundred years to tell me "Told you so".
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OK, check back with me in a few hundred years to tell me "Told you so".
See you in the Singularity Rapture cloud!
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Where's the incentive today to build cities in any of those places?
Where are the resources today to build cities in any of those places? Incentives mean nothing on their own; they must always be pegged to costs. If I offer you $5 to play Russian Roulette you will decline, not because we don't have the technology to play Russian Roulette, but because the incentive I offered does not outweigh the costs.
You really think we don't because we can't?
Correct. The resource investment today to establish thriving cities in those places is prohibitive. We don't because we can't. We can't because they would not be independently
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how predictable...
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Yes, we need to act on climate now. And yes we need to get habitats of some form off this rock. This concept that there is nothing in humanity worth saving needs to be stamped out. It's an indicator that humanity itself is depressed to the point where large swaths of people truly believe there is nothing in us, as in the collective us, all of humanity, worth preserving on its own merits. That all we are is trash, garbage, detritus. That the best hope we have to huddle here on our rock, and wait for the inev
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We have no right to take on another planet if we cannot look after our own.
Your primitive morality systems are ill equipped to deal with the Universe. But then, YOU are not everyone, you are just you, so what you believe will die with you. Enjoy your death cult and thanks for dragging me along with it.
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Could be issues, but... (Score:2)
Fertilization? Gravity is pretty obviously not relevant. Delivery? Ditto.
Fetal development? Ah, there is the big unknown. It is entirely possible that gravity has some effect on the development process. But the only way to find out is to have pregnancies in space. You could start small, with mice, and work your way up the scale to monkey. That's going to be a huge investment, though, given that you need numbers to produce reliable data.
I don't know that we're quite to the point of needing that data, given
Re:Could be issues, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually gravoty helps a lot in childbirth. The final dtage sognthe kid spinning sround head first all use gravity to help align . That alignment is critical to a safe delivery.
No what we really need in space is studing rotationsl pseudo gravity and its effects. We need that to move about safely andlong term living.
Yet no one is studying that.
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No what we really need in space is studing rotationsl pseudo gravity and its effects. We need that to move about safely andlong term living.
Yet no one is studying that.
Oh really? I am glad at least one person knows everything that happens because I sure don't. I do recall scientists in the 70s discussing exactly how large such a structure needs to be in order to provide the sensation of gravity without invoking a spinning sensation. I recall seeing jet pilots and astronauts getting in G force simulators to see what the human body can endure...
But yeah, nobody has done any research on this. Thanks for informing us.
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Rotational forxe in a gravity well yes it has been done. Rotational force in micro gravity. Has not been done to a lrage extant. The modules for ISS never launched. And are sitting in Japan.
Mars yea we can get by with a few trips to mars without some form of psuedo gravity. Any where else we will need something.
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... but I recall in The Expanse that bleeding profusely in microgravity was extra dangerous which felt truthy ,,,
There's at least one YouTube video with a real life astronaut explaining how bleeding in micro-gravity is especially dangerous. If someone on the ISS is bleeding bad enough then the protocol is to get them to Earth as quickly as possible. There's video of Col. Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut and musician, explaining the medical training that all astronauts must receive before going to space. Part of this training is spending time in an emergency department near some NASA facility so they can get re
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... there's no faster than light anything but there are wormholes...
Aren't wormholes by definition a means of faster than light travel?
I get it that as described a wormhole isn't allowing movement of any object beyond light speed since it is some kind of "fold" in 3D space but as depicted in science fiction is it almost certainly a path to some far off place that would require faster that light travel to get to this place by a path within "normal" 3D space. If it is not faster than light travel then it is still a break from physics as we know it since we have yet to see a
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Humanity does NOT have a backup plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Having babies in space is not a backup plan (Score:2)
Having babies in space is not a backup plan for humanity. Sending humans to attempt to colonize a dead planet is not a backup plan. Using earthâ(TM)s precious resources to try and make humans survive an entire planet with less water than the hottest earth desert, colder than the earths poles, and an atmosphere like the gas inside a can of coca cola, is not a backup plan.
What this Egbert Edelbroek person is is some kind of bizarre dutch motivational speaker and teambuilding entrepeneur. My guess is that
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Having babies in space is not a backup plan for humanity.
Maybe he just saw the list of 40 hottest women astronauts, https://www.ranker.com/list/th... [ranker.com] and wants a little space nookie.
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We're probably better off just creating spinning space tubes that we can control the climate to a pinpoint anyway.
Of course, this might end very badly for australia, but it's overall a good solution.
Musk money flowing in.... (Score:1)
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He wants to "wrestle" Zuckerberg in space. Let them go, but then Apollo-13-itize the return module.
Not "in space" - in microgravity (Score:2)
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We don't even know what 'gravity' is for certain. Simulating it with centrifugal force, is likely to be a sufficient analog for biological processes to operate as they do on earth but likely isnt the same as certain.
Stupid media (Score:3)
This is a dumb article, like every other science article. The just-out-of-journalism-school science beat reporter needs to ask a set of questions like, "what benefit does this have for all the little people?" That's bullshit. Knowledge is good for knowledge's sake - that's science. If we don't know how fertilization takes place in microgravity, and it's relatively easy to run the experiment because we're shooting stuff into space for cheaper and cheaper every year, and nobody's hurt, and some science foundation or billionaire is willing to fund it as their pet project, then just go do it and find out. The "humanity needs a backup plan" line is only some technically true thing thousands of years from now when we have the technology to be a multi-planet species. And no, the chance of us going extinct by the end of the century is very slim, and if it happens it'll be nuclear war, not climate change. The latter is going to cost us a lot of money and cause dislocation and war, not extinction.
You know the doom-sayers are full of it when they say we're either going to die in a hot-house Earth or a nuclear winter. You're saying we have the capability of over-heating AND over-cooling the planet, so we're doomed to either one or the other, and we don't have it in our power to force the temperature back to an equilibrium? I don't buy it.
Planetes Anime had such a baby (Score:2)
better question: population limits? (Score:2)
Newtype's soul is not weight down by gravity (Score:2)
Thus spoke Zeon Zum Deikun.
I can envision the ad now: (Score:4, Funny)
Horney Bastards Wanted for Space Research. Apply in robe.
Literally impossible at this point (Score:2)
You couldn't put enough people into space to keep the species running without inbreeding. And even if you could, there's nowhere for them to go. And even if there was such a place, they would need supplies from Earth.
Maybe someday it will be possible, but it literally is not now.
"Egbert Edelbroek was acting as a sperm donor" (Score:2)
no better alternative for eons (Score:2)
Even if we could terraform to desired specs (which may be theoretically possible but still unproven), it would take eons to realistically do that.
Our current planet is going to remain the best option for humanity for thousands of years. Even if we set off every nuke that exists and burned civilization to the ground, the Earth would still be more hospitable than EVERY other place that we know about in the Universe.
I'll help make them (Score:1)
The 100 Mile Club (Score:1)
humans? (Score:2)
Humans? Or just women? Or do they want to check whether men can have babies in space, too? Or just "men"?