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Re:Nasa Twins Study: A multidimensional analysis of a year-l... by scottie_m on Thursday April 11, 2019 @05:26PM (#19639397)
It’s not a study, but it’s been hypothesized that radiation and cosmic rays could cause lasting damage of just this sort through particle showers within the brain. Truthfully though there is very little in the way of studies for the simple fact that it’s hard to set one up for astronauts. Given how radically different the environment in space is compared to Earth though, I’m not finding this surprising. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just the tip of a very dangerous iceberg too, and it turns out that it takes a lot of time and sacrifice to get us to live and thrive somewhere other than Earth’s surface.
Re:Nasa Twins Study: A multidimensional analysis of a year-l... by fumar on Thursday April 11, 2019 @06:04PM (#19639732)
We have a small sample size of humans who have been exposed to space. I wonder what human mutations will be more preferable for space travel. Physical fitness is part of the equation but so is genetic-space compatibility.
Re:Nasa Twins Study: A multidimensional analysis of a year-l... by scottie_m on Thursday April 11, 2019 @06:11PM (#19639789)
Agreed. Genentic engineering will probably be helpful, but first we do as you say, have to know what to engineer for. Then of course we’ll have a kind of speciation event and we’ll risk having a kind of genetic apartheid based on people who work in space vs. planetside. It could get sci-fi dystopia levels of ugly if we don’t work to prevent those outcomes.
Re:Nasa Twins Study: A multidimensional analysis of a year-l... by wongarsu on Thursday April 11, 2019 @06:54PM (#19640111)
We already limit astronauts and many other professions based on genetic properties: height, tollerance to high g-forces, eyesight etc. Even things used as health indicators like resting blood pressure are influenced to a significant degree by genetics.

I think we will survive adding a few more genetic properties to the job requirements, especially since jobs on planets will vastly outnumber jobs in outer space for the forseeable future.

Re:Nasa Twins Study: A multidimensional analysis of a year-l... by wil421 on Thursday April 11, 2019 @09:07PM (#19640963)
Sounds like Gattaca. It a very slippery slope when you start to genetically engineering people.
Re:Nasa Twins Study: A multidimensional analysis of a year-l... by zamalek on Thursday April 11, 2019 @09:23PM (#19641074)
How do you engineer for space? Increasing telomere length is merely a stop-gap. Random mutations due to solar radiation are exactly the mechanism that evolution exploits to make progress (as well as other sources of entropy), the chemical makeup of DNA is poorly suited to space travel: you can't just genetically engineer that way.
Re:Nasa Twins Study: A multidimensional analysis of a year-l... by L_226 on Friday April 12, 2019 @03:17AM (#19642715)
You shorten the inter-generational period, i.e. make people breed rapidly (in space). The mutations will take of themselves.