Being an astronaut is not easy - it takes an extraordinary combination of courage, physical fitness, intelligence, the ability to make decisions quickly and remain calm under the most intense pressure. Then you may be taken into space. Or maybe not. When NASA selected its first astronauts in the late 1950s, the agency only looked to the best military and test pilots in the United States. The Soviet Union did the same, but pointed out that astronauts should be no more than 170 centimeters - in order to squeeze into the Vostok capsule - and paratroopers, since they had to eject from the capsules upon entering the atmosphere. Unlike the Americans, there were women astronauts in the USSR.
Since then, scientists, engineers and doctors have visited space. But throughout the 60 years of space exploration, all of them had to meet the highest criteria of "quality". Take, for example, ESA's 2009 astronaut recruitment. Of the six astronauts selected, three were military pilots and the fourth was a commercial pilot. The other two astronauts' hobbies included skydiving and mountain climbing.
But despite the selection of the best of the best, humans still feel bad in space. We are the products of 3.8 billion years of evolution, which took place in a comfortable, oxygen-rich atmosphere, protected by a magnetic bubble (magnetosphere) from the harsh universe. Away from Earth, astronauts are bombarded by cosmic radiation, vomiting, muscles and bones losing mass, vision impairing, and even the immune system is weakened by zero gravity.
ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano said he was amazed at how quickly his body changed in five and a half months in orbit on the International Space Station. “There is an adaptation that is similar to transformation,” he says. "Your legs are getting thinner and your face rounder - your body adapts to the new conditions of the norm."
He also noticed changes in his movements. “At first you try to move horizontally because you’re afraid of colliding with something and because you’re used to all parts of your body moving in different ways,” he says. "In six weeks, you will begin to move vertically again - you have adapted to space, you are already a celestial."
But adaptations alone are not enough. “Legs are not very useful in space,” says Parmitano. “I wouldn't chop them off, but why don't I turn them into hands? Two sets of hands would come in handy in space because you could hold onto the handrails and use other hands to work."
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“A stabilizing tail would also be incredibly interesting because three points of stability are better than two,” he says.
As astronauts and cosmonauts spend more and more time in space - the real record belongs to Valery Polyakov for a 437-day stay - and long-term missions are planned to the Moon and Mars, spacecraft and space dwellings have to be rethought to keep astronauts healthy and fit. Screens that protect them from radiation, complex life support systems, as well as artificial gravity - all this is simply necessary for long flights.
But what if, instead of trying to adapt space to humans, we could adapt humans to space?
“You can imagine what a future space man will look like, and this is not shocking or surprising - this is what we can and should do,” Parmitano said.
This topic is discussed at the annual Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop in Huntsville, Alabama. Here, space agency scientists, engineers and enthusiasts come together to discuss future colonies in orbit, spaceships and other tricks that will help humanity find new wondrous worlds.
Neuroscientist Robert Hampson, who studies the effects of radiation on the brain, is chairing a working group on human adaptation. “It will take a lot of time and materials to terraform a planet, for example,” he says. "But we could find a way to make humans more adaptable to less gravity and a different atmosphere."
To some extent, like today's astronauts, future space colonists are likely to be selected based on their suitability for extended space travel. They can have good natural radiation resistance, high bone density, or a strong immune system. These traits will be passed on to the next generation, which will only know space.
“If you take a young couple and a starship to form a colony, they will have children who will be adapted to that colony - not Earth,” Hampson says. “Parents will make this decision for the sake of their offspring and future generations.”
Generations will pass, and space people will differ from their earthly ancestors. But not much. They will almost certainly have one pair of hands. "Evolution is slow," says Hampson. "The question is, how strongly could we push evolution?"
Living in a gloomy, barren, alien environment, such as Mars, and even raising children is scary. But genetic engineering could overcome any moral objection. We could use genetic engineering to create human embryos that are better adapted to another planet than we are. Nowadays, genetic engineering methods are used to combat hereditary diseases.
“It is a moral imperative to give the child any advantage that will allow him not only to survive, but also to thrive,” says Hampson. "To live, work, be successful and healthy, as well as give life to their own children and offspring."
Most likely, when people begin to leave the Earth en masse, we will have to adapt to the new environment. Instead of finding Earth 2.0, we could create Human 2.0. They might even have four arms and a tail.
“It’s interesting to think about living in an environment that is not limited by gravity,” says Parmitano. "The chances of finding a second Earth are very small, but the thought of other conditions in which people could live is too attractive for me … but this is me."
Ilya Khel