"Why Human Enhancement is Necessary for Successful Human Deep-space Missions"

[Bill Ryan]

This article seems to belong in this section!


https://tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20502877.2019.1667559

Why Human Enhancement is Necessary for Successful Human Deep-space Missions
27 September, 2019

Abstract:
[The full article is only available if one logs in]

While humans have made enormous progress in the exploration and exploitation of Earth, exploration of outer space remains beyond current human capabilities. The principal challenges lie in current space technology and engineering which includes the protection of astronauts from the hazards of working and living in the space environment.

These challenges may lead to a paradoxical situation where progress in space technology and the ability to ensure acceptable risk/benefit for human space exploration becomes dissociated and the rate of scientific discovery declines. In this paper, we discuss the predominant challenges of the space environment for human health and argue that development and deployment of a human enhancement policy, initially confined to astronauts – for the purpose of future human space programmes is a rational solution to these challenges.

[Peter UK]

Completely dismissing the idea that it isn't the exploration and challenge of outer space that is of real importance to humanity but very much the inner one after which all else would follow naturally.

[EFO]

Why do we need artificially enhance ourselves and go to space,since we didn't even know our planet and more of that we destroying it step by step?
Aluna

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftFbCwJfs1I

[Star Tsar]

Why do we need artificially enhance ourselves and go to space

Because @ present we only live eighty to one hundred years if one is fortunate. So if we are to venture out into the deepest regions of space we will need some kind of augmentation or some kind of cryosleep technology.

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Half a year & that is just to Mars so I don't know what Jared Leto's talking about!

[Billy]

I am with Peter on this one, I do not think humanity will be "allowed" a passport into space or technology to do so, until we learn to look after each other and care for our mother earth.
No beings out there would want us to pollute other planets or space with our greedy, self destructive lack of respectful war mongering ways. I don't blame them either.
Only when humanity is spirituality more advanced with technology that compliments our spirituality will we be able to venture into the unknown.
My thoughts :heart:

[Lyran.Sun]

I've heard about mind upload technology where the astronauts uploads their consciousness onto a robot & its used to do fixing of hard to reach areas & awkward angles all that, also to prevent unnecessary injuries. After the job's done the consciousness is reloaded back to the body.

[Bill Ryan]

I've heard about mind upload technology where the astronauts uploads their consciousness onto a robot & its used to do fixing of hard to reach areas & awkward angles all that, also to prevent unnecessary injuries. After the job's done the consciousness is reloaded back to the body.Well, that's not a current (present time) technology. Nothing like that is happening to any astronauts we know of.

[christian]

The idea of technologically enhancing humans to enable them to go on deep-space voyages has been around for a while.

It was first prominently proposed by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline in the journal Astronautics in 1960. They coined the term cyborg (Ancient Greek: kubernán = steer, direct; órganon = instrument, tool, (sensory) organ) to give a name to the enhanced human.




Cyborgs and space

Altering man’s bodily functions to meet the requirements of extraterrestrial environments would be more logical than providing an earthly environment for him in space . . . Artifact-organism systems which would extend man’s unconscious, self-regulatory controls are one possibility

Full paper: http://web.mit.edu/digitalapollo/Documents/Chapter1/cyborgs.pdf

I personally agree that it's reckless to consider colonizing space when we haven't cleaned up our act on Earth.

[Joe Akulis]

I am with Peter on this one, I do not think humanity will be "allowed" a passport into space or technology to do so, until we learn to look after each other and care for our mother earth.
No beings out there would want us to pollute other planets or space with our greedy, self destructive lack of respectful war mongering ways. I don't blame them either.
Only when humanity is spirituality more advanced with technology that compliments our spirituality will we be able to venture into the unknown.
My thoughts :heart:

I also wonder if efforts like Elon's Starship will be "allowed" as you say. But I don't think it's something that only benevolent ETs have a say in, however.

If some of the things that have been said about reptilians are true, then it seems like they would have a vested interest in preventing us from expanding our presence. Not because we aren't evolved enough, but because they intend to keep us under their boot.

Those are just two obvious reasons why it'll be very interesting to see how far some of our recent efforts will make it. Probably won't be hard to think of lots of other people who would have reasons to want our spacefaring activities sabotaged.

Oh, I just thought of another one: The earth-based folks who already have a secret space fleet and don't want anyone nosing around and blowing the lid on them!

[prc]

I agree with Peter and Billy, we shouldn´t attempt to go anywhere before we feed, house, and take care of the 7 Billion people we have in this planet. In my country there are millions of people that do not eat three meals a day. We currently have 13 million unemployed people only in Brazil. Hospitals without vacancies for those who need. There are human beings that lead hellish lives overhere, why not helping this people instead of diverting millions of dollars on a space mission.
As far as I am aware, when I was following the initiative of http://www.mars-one.com/ we currently don´t have the technology to go anywhere out there. There was even a Muslin Country (not sure if it was Saudi Arabia) that told their nationals to avoid the Mars One mission because it would be a suicide due to the hostile climate conditions of MArs surface.

[Star Tsar]

The thing is space exploration plays into the growing sentiment on this thread. To ease the ever growing burden on Earth's finite resources we simply have to take advantage of space's infinite resources. (A point Fraser Cain of Universe Today makes expertly in the video posted below}. That being we cannot "feed, cloth & house" seven billion or so people off the back of Earth.

Personally it seems clear to me as a collective we are not putting enough thought & research into our future.

Skip to 31:55 if one is interested


John Michael Godier's Event Horizon

Fraser Cain | Can SpaceX Get Starship To Mars?

Published 26th September 2019

Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today and host of his own youtube channel. In this episode of Event Horizon, Fraser and John Michael Godier discuss the recent Starhopper test in boca chica texas. Is starship on track to get SpaceX to mars? What is the latest on the update to Starship? Can the payload capabilities of starship dramatically change how we use low earth orbit around Earth. Including the Starlink internet communication satellites planned by SpaceX to provide global broadband internet. And what about Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin's plans for O'Niell Cylinders?

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[Ernie Nemeth]

Of course the idea of the increasing burden on our home planet becoming a problem in terms of carrying capacity, assumes the continued exploitation of earth's resources and the ever-increasing rapacious appetite of the modern status quo as it stands today.

Maybe it still holds an allure for most but I bet a time will come soon when folks will start rethinking their actual needs and wants and what has been inculcated in them to keep up with the Jones'. This recipe-life and the corralling of our youth within the education system and our necessarily busy adult lives leaves a lot to be desired that the masses have forgotten, for now. As their wallets are pressed thinner, they will be forced to downsize regardless.

Space exploration will remain limited for humans for many reasons, if we keep the context of this discussion to the public domain. Time is an issue as long as distance has to be covered mile by mile. Cost will keep the vast majority earthbound. And no matter where the destination, it will not be a joy ride - there will be severe limitations and restrictions imposed on all non-vital activity.

As far as augmentation of humans goes, we've bred animals selectively to enhance various attributes, I suppose it would be possible to breed humans the same, if such could be ethically agreed to that is.

The problem with sleep programs of long duration is that the human biorhythms have to be suspended, this causes havoc on the body.

A better plan is a generation ship, but again there are ethical considerations.

So far, it is not even clear if a group can get along indefinitely in close quarters. They've tried it before and the test had to be aborted because of animosity among the participants after about six months together, although another attempt more recently was successful for a two year stay (Earth Ship II).

So although there is no doubt there must be human enhancement for deep-space missions, it might be premature to consider such a trip because of other considerations closer to home.

[christian]

[W]e cannot "feed, cloth & house" seven billion or so people off the back of Earth.

Ample research suggests that there's food for 10bln people, that organic agriculture produces just as much as industrial agriculture (considering the aggregate of quality and quantity) and that permaculture can do even more, plus regenerating soil, water and air.

I don't think it's smart to panic and expand, but to calm down, look inward, do less harm and just work with what is here more efficiently. There's really no need to colonize or exploit space at the moment and it would most likely further confound an already difficult situation.

[petra]

I personally agree that it's reckless to consider colonizing space when we haven't cleaned up our act on Earth.

Reckless and irresponsible. How dare we!



[The full article is only available if one logs in]


Full article is available now - can you check again? It's LONG!!

[Star Tsar]

[W]e cannot "feed, cloth & house" seven billion or so people off the back of Earth.

Ample research suggests that there's food for 10bln people, that organic agriculture produces just as much as industrial agriculture (considering the aggregate of quality and quantity) and that permaculture can do even more, plus regenerating soil, water and air.

I don't think it's smart to panic and expand, but to calm down, look inward, do less harm and just work with what is here more efficiently. There's really no need to colonize or exploit space at the moment and it would most likely further confound an already difficult situation.

Respectfully that sounds like more of the same to me with slighty better technology, we'd still be reliant on fossil fuels, fracking, mining & other unfavourable practices. For me prudence & forethought are always the best path/s forward. Why the assumption of panic? It is the twenty first century after all.

Besides that we have kind of got off topic.

[Star Tsar]

Dr Kaku shares his expertise on this matter


Chicago Humanities Festival

Michio Kaku: Humanity In Space

Published 15th May 2019

Physicist Michio Kaku has already probed the neuroscientific frontiers of the human mind—including telekinesis, telepathy, and dreams. In The Future of Humanity, Kaku turns to a broader and less fathomable frontier: the universe. With irrepressible enthusiasm and a deep understanding of the cutting-edge research in space travel, Kaku comes to CHF for an inspiring conversation ranging from wormholes to artificial intelligence, and a future in which humanity finally achieves what was once deemed impossible: living among the stars.

This program is presented in partnership with Illinois Science Council. This program was recorded on April 11, 2019.

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[christian]

Ample research suggests that there's food for 10bln people, that organic agriculture produces just as much as industrial agriculture (considering the aggregate of quality and quantity) and that permaculture can do even more, plus regenerating soil, water and air.

I don't think it's smart to panic and expand, but to calm down, look inward, do less harm and just work with what is here more efficiently.

Respectfully that sounds like more of the same to me with slighty better technology, we'd still be reliant on fossil fuels, fracking, mining & other unfavourable practices. For me prudence & forethought are always the best path/s forward. Why the assumption of panic?

I really do think that we have right here on Earth all it takes to create a beautiful, healthy, sustainable civilization in harmony with nature, including ecologically sustainably energy and so on. Therefore to think of exploitation/exploration of space as a necessity or an advantage at tht present time appears rather panicky to me and likely to do a disservice to our environmental amibitions. After all, space travel comes at an environmental cost, especially with the technology that we currently use and with the power structures that are currently in place.

I agree with you about this is wandering off-topic, therefore I'm not gonna expand on the argument that we have all it takes right here and now.

[Ratszinger]

I don't think any creature from earth can be transported to another planet outside this solar system and live. At least not for long. Every creature large and small here is regulated in it's reproductive cycles by the sun and moon and clock work cycle of our own system. Tests conducted in the fifties on women confirmed if they block the sun and moon frequencies which regulate the women's menstrual cycle of an average 28 days that after about three months the women's menstrual cycle became irregular, and then in time it stopped altogether, the women became mentally unstable and I understand they stopped the trials early as a result. I've looked for this again and still am looking but this test was done by the government so they've known for some time that we're stuck to this sun system if we go anywhere. Perhaps we could adapt to another planet cycle here such as mars and in time adjust to the cycle there to reproduce with a different gestation and periodic regularity but it's all speculation.

So long as men's 33 day average cycle and women's 28 day cycle are regulated by the sun and moon and/or we become machine to regulate that for us, we are stuck here in this solar system.

[Star Tsar]

What about a human being that has been gestated & born off Earth? Would that human be more suited to the harsh environment of space? IF that is the case?

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[Peter UK]

While humans have made enormous progress in the exploration and exploitation of Earth, exploration of outer space remains beyond current human capabilities. The principal challenges lie in current space technology and engineering which includes the protection of astronauts from the hazards of working and living in the space environment.

These challenges may lead to a paradoxical situation where progress in space technology and the ability to ensure acceptable risk/benefit for human space exploration becomes dissociated and the rate of scientific discovery declines. In this paper, we discuss the predominant challenges of the space environment for human health and argue that development and deployment of a human enhancement policy, initially confined to astronauts – for the purpose of future human space programmes is a rational solution to these challenges.

I can see that from a scientists perspective particularly if they are a space scientist, that this will be spoken of as the holy grail but it seems to me it can only be considered at best a playful distraction and at worst potentially of nefarious intent. It's likely that outer space exploration could only solve a very small percentage of the issues humanity face at best, so in that sense it's not an answer at all.

If the idea exists within the scientific community that a panacea for all our problems here on earth lies just around the corner in outer space, then it's a real misunderstanding and mis-direct.

The only thing the SSP has got is a secret and that tells us everything we need to know.

[Star Tsar]

Fancy a DNA trade with a tardigrade?


Space.com

Can We Genetically Engineer Humans To Survive Missions To Mars?

Published 7th November 2019

https://data.ibtimes.sg/en/full/29282/tardigrade.png?w=736

Will we one day combine tardigrade DNA with our cells to go to Mars?

Chris Mason, a geneticist and associate professor of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell University in New York, has investigated the genetic effects of spaceflight and how humans might overcome these challenges to expand our species farther into the solar system. One of the (strangest) ways that we might protect future astronauts on missions to places like Mars, Mason said, might involve the DNA of tardigrades, tiny micro-animals that can survive the most extreme conditions, even the vacuum of space!

Mason led one of the 10 teams of researchers NASA chose to study twin astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly. After launching in 2015, Scott Kelly spent almost a year aboard the International Space Station while his twin brother, Mark Kelly, stayed back on Earth.

Read all about it here: https://www.space.com/genetically-engineer-astronauts-missions-mars-protect-radiation.html