How humans can reinvent themselves and live in other worlds

Let’s face it. Space is an environment that is hostile to humans. Even on Mars, settlers may struggle to deal with deadly levels of potential radiation, scarce resources, and reduced gravity.

In “Mickey 17″ (Bong Joon-ho’s new sci-fi film,” a consumable space traveler named Mickey (Robert Pattinson), the Korean filmmaker who marked “Parasite,” is put at deadly risk over and over again. And every time he is killed, the lab’s 3D printer stirs up another copy of Mickey.

“He wants to save humanity,” the film poster declares.

It is possible to create a 3D printed body part for implantation, but the idea of ​​printing a complete human body and restoring backed up memories is pure science fiction. Nevertheless, Christopher Mason, a biomedical researcher at Cornell University who studies space-related health issues, is intrigued by the film’s premises.

“If you can print and completely reconstruct a 3D body, you can theoretically learn a lot about a body in a more dangerous situation,” he says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science Podcast. “I think the concept of the film is actually very interesting.”

In a book entitled “The Next 500 Years: Engineering Life to Reach a New World,” Mason explores how to optimize the human body for living in space. He argues that it is up to us humans to secure a long-term future for life in the universe by passing the tools of evolution into our own hands.

Even if we could avoid exploding or succumbing to the effects of climate change, it would only take about a billion years before the sun reaches an activity that would neutralize the Earth.

“We want to think about maintaining the life that we need to go to other planets and ultimately to other planets,” says Mason. “This gives us a unique obligation to life, as humans are the only species that recognizes extinction… I call it a dentogenic principle, a genetic obligation to all life.”

The good news is that at least temporarily, it can adapt to many of the rigors of spaceflight. Mason and other researchers saw it when they monitored the health of NASA astronaut Scott Kelly during their nearly one year stint at the International Space Station from 2015 to 2016. They compared Kelly’s physical and genetic profile to his twin brother, Mark Kelly, monitored on Earth.

A NASA-sponsored Twins study found that Scott Kelly experienced the changes in the way his genes and immune system worked while he was in space.

“Over 90% of these changes seemed to actually return to normal within months of returning to Earth,” Mason said. However, some changes lasted a long time.

“There’s this nagging question about this small percentage of genes and functions. This was confusing to SpaceX and other commercial providers, as they were studying today with other crew members,” he said.

As explorers and settlers go beyond Earth orbit and the protective magnetic shields of our planets, the stress in the space environment can be more concerning. Returns to Mickey 17 and other earthly life forms that can kill.

Radiation is the biggest concern. Research conducted so far suggests that astronauts may be exposed to cancer-causing levels of radiation during their three-year mission to Mars and their back. Thick shields may reduce risk, but Mason suggests using genetics as well.

“For example, paralyzed people are these water bears that can survive the vacuum of space and the massive amount of radiation,” he says. “We create cells in the lab, actually collect late genes and use them in human cells, and have this increase in radiation resistance. This is an 80% reduction in (DNA) damage we observe.”

If a scientist can use CRISPR-style gene editing tools to insert a slow gigrade gene into Mickey’s genome, it may head towards one of his deaths. In his book, Mason lists other genetic techniques that improve the vision of space travelers, boost their immune responses, and make them more likely to “hibernate” during long trips.

“I think the simplest ones include your own ability to make all of your own amino acids and vitamins,” says Mason. “For example, the genes that make vitamin C are still embedded in all DNA. It’s degraded and no longer functional. But with some small fixes, you can create your own vitamin C.”

As scientists learn more about health-related genes in humans and other species and improve their gene editing techniques, Mason believes the challenges of spaceflight will become so difficult, not just for professional astronauts but for the rest of us.

“You can imagine a case where you can put someone into space ethically, responsibly and safely,” says Mason. “That’s not too far.”

And if space travelers encounter unexpected challenges in another world (such as the alien microbes on Mars), they don’t have to deal with it themselves.

“I’ll talk a bit about the concept of ‘point-to-point biology’ in the book where something strange might appear on Mars, but there’s not much resources to do high-throughput screening, or characterizing the higher dimensions of a living thing,” says Mason.

In that case, the genetic code of the alien microorganism can be sequenced on site using the next generation version of the equipment already tested at the International Space Station. The DNA data may then be sent to lab researchers on Earth.

“They can integrate it and then study it with more resources and send updates back to Mars,” says Mason. “You can imagine this idea of ​​a noble cycle of observation, interrogation, research, data transfer, and repeat it in a place with more resources, and send that knowledge back and help the organism adapt.”

It’s a world where Mickey doesn’t have to die every day.