According to Elon Musk's calculations, people will have to rush towards Mars in the next decade. On September 27, SpaceX CEO announced the development of a mass transit rocket system, a flotilla of ships that will carry passengers and cargo to Mars and back every 26 months when both planets are in opposition. And by 2022, there will be the first hundred people on Mars.
Obviously, this will be the first step towards creating a human settlement on Mars. However, this process will take a very, very long time if it turns out that people cannot bear children there.
Scientists do not yet know what will happen if a person tries to get pregnant, bear a fetus or raise a developing human being on a planet with a third of Earth's gravity and a hundred times radiation on the surface compared to Earth. It is not yet clear, writes Brandon Keim in Wired, whether "cellular processes that have evolved with an eye to earthly physics" can proceed correctly in a different type of environment.
Of course, Hollywood movies do nothing to help us answer this question.
Space is not a place for children
Towards the cinema. Everything we know about mammalian reproduction outside the Earth is not encouraging. In 1979, five females and two male rats flew on the Russian satellite Kosmos-1129. Two rats became pregnant, but both pregnancies resolved. In 2009, biologists bred rats in artificial microgravity, and the embryonic cells of the rats did not divide or mature as expected. Similar studies have revealed that the fetus of rats under microgravity conditions experiences abnormal development of the skeleton and brain, adult males show poor sperm and shriveled testicles.
Scientists have expressed concern that low gravity may also increase the risk of ectopic pregnancy.
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Unfortunately, cosmic radiation raises no less questions regarding human development and existence in such conditions. What will happen to a woman who becomes pregnant and subsequently receives radiation? Radiation can interfere with cellular processes and damage DNA. It can damage sperm count. Medical examples have already demonstrated this.
The Earth's atmosphere stops most of the cosmic radiation, preventing it from reaching the planet. But the Martian atmosphere is not. Modern radiation shielding technologies do not compensate for this in any way.
Dr. John P. Millis, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Anderson University in Indiana, writes that even if fertilization takes place despite a reduced sperm count, the Martian radiation will be "strong enough to prevent cell proliferation in the fetus and end pregnancy." …
And this is at best. The effects of ionizing radiation, the most common and abundant form of radiation in space, on a fetus or embryo can be totally catastrophic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has compiled a list of problems, defects, underdevelopment, impaired brain function and cancer that appear "even if the dose of radiation is too small to immediately affect the mother."
To top it all off, sex itself can lead to nausea and dizziness, contraceptives may not work, and reduced gravity can interfere with erections.
No sex on Mars
Mars One, a competitor to SpaceX planning to send a team to Mars in 2026, says it will advise early settlers to avoid pregnancy. The first colony on Mars is unlikely to be a suitable place for children to grow up, the company explains on its website, and "the ability of a person to conceive in conditions of reduced gravity is still unknown, as well as whether the fetus can develop normally in such circumstances."
This can lead to abstinence, especially against the background of questions about the effectiveness of contraception. Perhaps the question of voluntary sterilization of Mars explorers will be raised.
And if Musk thought about sex in space, he didn't mention it.
Like NASA. In response to this question, a NASA spokesman said that the agency's plan is to determine the factors that can affect human health. But the topic of human reproduction is not included here.
NASA plans to send humans to Mars by the late 2030s. Really, no one will be concerned about the issue of procreation on Mars?
ILYA KHEL