How settling Mars could create a new human species

http://nautil.us/issue/41/selection/the-martians-are-comingand-theyre-human

by rgun • 10 years ago

90 101 10 years ago

api• 10 years ago

This is absolutely correct from a perspective of bog-standard evolutionary biology. A "fork" of a species into two very different environments with limited gene flow between them is virtually guaranteed to eventually lead to speciation event.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. :)

rootbear• 10 years ago

Agreed. It would be interesting to see how genetic engineering might be used to "steer" the changes needed to adapt to life on Mars. I've been concerned about the gravity issue for some time. It's not at all clear that 0.38g is healthy for humans in the long term. And the radiation threat is a very serious issue, even just for the trip out there. The long term effects are hard to predict. It really is a pity that Venus is such a hell hole; 0.87g would be much nicer on the human body.

M_Grey11• 10 years ago

Or we could try to exploit the 78%+ of this planet we don't use... the oceans. Easier than space, that's for damned sure.

rawnlq• 10 years ago

Where does the selection pressure come from though?

I have enough faith in our race that even if we have someone who is genetically less fit for mars we won't just let him die before he reaches a reproductive age.

So will it be by their potential partners? It would be pretty funny if they end up developing martian dating apps that requires putting their DNA sequences online just like how height and race is currently required.

s_kilk• 10 years ago

martian dating apps that requires putting their DNA sequences online

Hmm, as long as the separate species are still physically compatible *cough, I don't see why that would be necessary, at least in the context of dating/hookups.

For breeding? Sure.

LeifCarrotson• 10 years ago

martian dating apps that requires putting their DNA sequences online

This isn't how selection pressure works. And while you're correct that we won't let a human die, potential partners already do a sort of DNA analysis. While it's not as ruthless as in the wild, potential partners definitely evaluate each other based on criteria like fitness, appearance, and intelligence, which have genetic components.

Consider that the Martian environment might make individuals who are genetically more susceptible to skin cancer likely to have facial scarring before reproductive age, or make lanky individuals more graceful in the low gravity, or make short people able to move through small hab units with less awkwardness. Or consider the potential effects of claustrophobia or a proclivity for motion sickness on life in space, or the demands on intelligence and resulting careers.

These effects would cause some genotypes to be more attractive than others in a different way than they are on Earth where, for example, height is often considered attractive and is not penalized by short space hab ceilings. It's not that those lacking these traits would be prohibited from reproducing, but that they would have a bit of a challenge finding partners, while those possessing the traits would find it slightly easier. As a result of a few on the margin failing or succeeding in finding partners, those with the traits might have 2.55 children on average, and those without might have 2.53 children. Eventually, this pressure could shift the gene pool in a different direction than Earth.

zardo• 10 years ago

We wont be colonizing Mars in a future where we can't email and print a genome.

mc323• 10 years ago

A different question altogether, but interesting none the less, let's say Russia or China get to colonize Mars first, then let's say they find a safe way to thrive there. could they then by extension manage new colonization of Mars the same way we colonized earth? That is the colonizer could regulate who might get to further colonize Mars --ie require a kind of interplanetary visa (if we allow many people from many places on Earth have the means to get there)? Are there treaties which require any colonizer to allow other people to set a foothold there? And what if the new Martians just declare independence? Do we cross our arms?

M_Grey11• 10 years ago

The colonization of Earth was accomplished with brute force, not visas.

mc323• 10 years ago

Imagine deep sea exploration. Someone finds something very valuable and worth extracting despite the cost. There are treaties for this, of course. But would it work the same for Mars? Or, would we revert to force, as you say, if the Mars colony declares independence and says, no more Earthlings or only Earthlings from Country X who pay us handsomely.

azdle• 10 years ago

There is the Outer Space Treaty [1]:

The treaty explicitly forbids any government from claiming a celestial resource such as the Moon or a planet.[3] Art. II of the Treaty states that "outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means". However, the State that launches a space object retains jurisdiction and control over that object.[4] The State is also liable for damages caused by their space object.[5]

I assume "other celestial bodies" would include other planets.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty

ChuckMcM2• 10 years ago

Yes, and countries can, and do, remove themselves from treaties when they feel it is in their best interest. The most critical one in our time was the anti-ballistic missile treaty which the US withdrew from in 2001.

If a country felt they could control access to and maintain control over, a celestial body I could imagine them withdrawing from the treaty and claiming that body as their own.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/13/international/bush-pulls-o...

NickBusey2• 10 years ago

So, while no one can actually claim the land, if they land a bunch of habitat shaped 'space objects' on the surface, it is still under the jurisdiction of the country that launched them. Sounds like a loophole? "We don't claim this land, it's just covered with a city sized grouping of space objects that we do claim."

bbctol• 10 years ago

That said, the definition of "space object" could make things tricky. Sure, China doesn't own this chunk of Mars, but they own the Mars base, and freely mine from the areas around the base, and decide who can open the door that they own...

tomp2• 10 years ago

This treaty only binds the governments that signed it, i.e. only the governments of Earth. If people colonize Mars, couldn't they create a new (local) government that would then be able to claim sovereignty of the planet?

curried_haskell• 10 years ago

This treaty will be shred to pieces the moment anyone with power gets a serious economic and colonization interest in space. It's utterly worthless.

science4sail• 10 years ago

The treaty of Tordesillas regulated colonization, but it ended up falling by the wayside as countries not party to the treaty decided to just ignore it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas

novalis78• 10 years ago

Of course... that's one of the arguments for colonizing Mars sooner than later.

sly010• 10 years ago

And what if the new Martians just declare independence?

We just cut their supplies for 3 months ;)

wyager4• 10 years ago

Presumably they wouldn't do it without becoming self-sustaining first, just like the American colonies.

JoeDaDude• 10 years ago

There is a historical precedent for a similar situation in North America, which was settled by the French and Indian War.

AJ007• 10 years ago

Given the success rate of holding on to local colonies nearby on earth, my guess is it won't last and Mars would become independent at some point.

M_Grey11• 10 years ago

I suspect the truth is that we wont' be truly settling Mars for any length of time, and if we do it will be with automation rather than humans, or humans who have been extensively modified, maybe even bred for the role. The alternative is a series of technological breakthroughs which are nowhere apparent on the horizon.

xkcd-sucks• 10 years ago

Insects, algae, lichens, bacteria etc. are might be stronger contenders than inorganic self-replicating machinery. They're pretty good at surviving harsh environments already, evolve pretty quickly, and often have life cycles adapted to multiple types of environment and timescales of activity, much like multi-stage spacecraft.

M_Grey11• 10 years ago

The problem there is that however we engineer them, we'll be competing with evolution in situ, and at a great distance. Machines break, but they also do just what you design them to do.

dfar1• 10 years ago

The idea of colonizing another planets is so surreal it makes me wish I would live another 100 years. Having mars as our launch pad, I wonder where we could go from there.

myowncrapulence2• 10 years ago

I'm sure there was someone in 1492 saying the same thing about America. The grass is always greener.

wyager4• 10 years ago

I mean, they were right. Quality of life improved for the European colonizing nations. Not so much for the natives, but presumably we're not going to run into anyone already on mars.

edblarney5• 10 years ago

Living in North America is not that-that different from living in Europe.

There is no 'green grass' on Mars, literally or metaphorically. There isn't even any 'air'.

wyager4• 10 years ago

Strictly speaking, it should be possible for humans to go interstellar using current technology. Practically speaking, it's not, due to the partial nuclear test ban treaty. Here's a good start to that Wikipedia hole: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propu...

maverick_iceman• 10 years ago

Ah, Project Orion! My favorite example of revolutionary technology that got banned for political reasons.

SixSigma2• 10 years ago

What about when Mars declares independence from Earth and develops nuclear capability ?

martey2• 10 years ago

Most of that article deals with interplanetary travel. The only reference to interstellar travel is in the "Theoretical Applications" section. If you look at the chart in that section, you will note that the two theoretical spacecraft are using 300 thousand or 30 million bombs. This is a problem, since estimates of current worldwide nuclear weapon stockpiles range between 10 to 15 thousand.

I think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion is a better article, since it talks about a variety of theoretical spacecraft. You'll note that almost every single application uses a unmanned craft in order to reduce mass and keep travel times down to about a century.

Charles Stross (cstross) has written on his blog about the difficulties of human interstellar travel multiple times:

- http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high...

- http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/the_myth...

He also has written about the difficulties of radiation shielding on interstellar travel: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/08/san-trom...

"Anyway, the point I'd like you to take away from this is that while it's really hard to say "sending an interstellar probe is absolutely impossible", the smart money says that it's extremely difficult to do it using any technology currently existing or in development. We'd need a whole raft of breathroughs, including radiation shielding techniques to kick the interstellar medium out of the way of the probe as well as some sort of beam propulsion system and then some way of getting data back home across interstellar distances ... and that's for a flyby mission like New Horizons that would take not significantly less than a human lifetime to get there."

Damian_Reloaded4• 10 years ago

The problem with interstellar travel is that the distances are so huge that there is a high probability of having a catastrophic crash. Particularly at the speeds required.

edblarney5• 10 years ago

Living on Mars = living inside a crapped space your entire life and never being able to breathe fresh air, or take a walk outside.

Maybe in 1000 years Mars will be nice.

I think until then - nice for a short visit.

Living in a box would get tiring very, very quickly.

artmageddon• 10 years ago

Maybe in 1000 years Mars will be nice.

Wouldn't terraforming take much, much longer than that? Assuming it were possible(which doesn't seem possible due to lack of a magnetic field, as another commenter pointed out)

Damian_Reloaded4• 10 years ago

VR is going to help in this regard. Will VR be able to be a good replacement for a walk over the forest? I think it will. I didn't need VR to trade my outside activities for indoor, climatized comfy online ones. Although it's probably true that spending years inside a submarine isn't for everyone.

sliken2• 10 years ago

Dunno, sure mountains, lakes, and the grand canyon are nice. But how often does the average person see something like that?

Seems like most people are inside at home, driving, inside at work, or occasionally inside a store/coffee shop.

With less gravity, and square feet free for the taking you could build large interior spaces well larger than people are used to on earth.

TV/displays are good enough you could build a large underground house and sprinkle around larger "windows" with a view of whatever you want.

L_226• 10 years ago

Forget where I read it, gliders might be a popular recreation on Mars due to low gravity and low air traffic.

sliken2• 10 years ago

Assuming mars has the materials needed it could become quite the space hub. Seems hard near the absolute limit to build a space elevator on earth. But with less atmosphere, less gravity, and a smaller planet an elevator (and dramatically cheaper access to space) could be quite useful.

imron• 10 years ago

The harsh conditions on Mars might make such unlikely events more probable if the outcome—say, bright orange skin—was very beneficial.

Make Mars Great Again.

jack92• 10 years ago

This is pretty backwards. We will genetically engineer humans to live on Mars. This is the only way it can work. Any genetic drift would be optimized and changed by the same biotechnology, so there's no chance that a new species would be created in less than a millenia.

fao_• 10 years ago

Genetically engineering someone to live on Mars could itself create enough of a difference that a new species could be created

logfromblammo• 10 years ago

If the engineering is done correctly, the new models remain backward-compatible with the old.

jack92• 10 years ago

Yes, but that wasn't covered by the article. The title references post-speciation.

hourislate• 10 years ago

It looks like we have to overcome the technological hurdles of creating gravity and some kind of shielding (invisible) that can protect humans from radiation. Steady power would be required. Curious if wind power could be used. If Musk could send a rocket to Mars that was basically a huge wind turbine that would anchor itself and unfold its blades, couldn't it create enough power to provide for a small contingent of people? Add some solar and there could be an abundance of power. With a good source of plentiful and steady power it would certainly make this endeavor more possible.

wanda• 10 years ago

creating gravity

As an aside, I can't help but feel that harnessing gravity would open up far more exciting possibilities than colonizing/inhabiting Mars.

gnode• 10 years ago

Artificial gravity can be created with a centrifuge, and pretty much anything with mass will shield you from radiation. Currently making a centrifugal spacecraft lined with radiation shielding would be too costly. The cost efficiency of rapidly reusable spacecraft could make such solutions to these problems affordable.

lxmorj2• 10 years ago

Use an asteroid?

amorphid• 10 years ago

Could Mars ever be terraformed to the point a human, or human derivative, could operate comfortably in the open atmosphere? It seems pretty cold, air pressure is low, and there's little-to-no protection from solar radiation.

kogepathic• 10 years ago

Likely no. Because Mars lacks a magnetic field to protect fragile meatbags from cosmic radiation. [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars

Justanothernick• 10 years ago

Yes this is true, but there are pockets of very strong magnetic fields which could presumably "help" protect small stations and camps of us squishy little carbon bags of water.

http://mgs-mager.gsfc.nasa.gov/images.html

cardine• 10 years ago

We'd likely be able to colonize the atmosphere of Venus before we'd be able to terraform Mars.

Damian_Reloaded4• 10 years ago

Giving Mars an atmosphere is pretty much out of the question. Even digging a 20km deep hole in Hellas Planitia to achieve a pressure above the Armstrong limit is more plausible.

dyeje• 10 years ago

Reminds me of The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov. The third part of the book takes place on the moon where there is a divergent human species / society. Great book, and there are some really interesting thoughts on how two divergent human species would chafe against one another in that part of it.

mmanfrin• 10 years ago

Yes, but they will be closer to Earthers than the Belters will be, sa sa?

(The Expanse covers ideas like this; inner planets (Earth and Mars) are more like-now human, but those who grew up on space stations and asteroids, aka 'Belters', are physically different, taller, lankier)

molsongolden• 10 years ago

Awesome to see this in the comments. The Expanse does a neat job of working through some socio-political thought experiments.

irremediable2• 10 years ago

I highly recommend Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. Great scifi books about a vaguely realistic Mars settlement, and the cultural/biological changes that occur.

sharkjacobs• 10 years ago

And then read Aurora, also by Robinson, to promptly crush all your dreams of terraforming mars and settling other solar systems!

erispoe2• 10 years ago

I never could get beyond the first dozens of pages, I was very annoyed by the way Robinson paints broad group of people as having homogeneous traits (the "arabs" living in a martian kasbah and depicted as backward people). Does it get past that?

irremediable2• 10 years ago

Did you start with the first book? I wouldn't have thought it would start with that stuff, because Mars isn't colonised at the start of the series.

IMO it is better than that most of the time, in any case.

blurbleblurble• 10 years ago

I'm surprised at how little criticism I hear about the colonization of Mars. Interfering with the evolutionary development of an entire planet should be a huge consideration. But it's colonialism as usual.

How settling Mars could create a new human species

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