ti3x wrote:Sounds somewhat conspiracy-theorish, particularly since all the sources I have ever heard of say that our brains have a projected maximum operating capacity of around 120 years, although that may indeed be wrong. Anything beyond that will be about messing around with neurons, either making them more flexible, changing them completely, or doing something in between.
That estimation however includes damage taken from chemicals already common by the time it was made.
For example, just completely removing refined sugar from your food has been estimated to increase that limit by 10-30 years.
Getting rid of the 5 most common artificial substances commmonly used that are made by using mould or fungii have been theorised to potentially have similar effects.
One example is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acidIn 1917, American food chemist James Currie discovered certain strains of the mold Aspergillus niger could be efficient citric acid producers, and the pharmaceutical company Pfizer began industrial-level production using this technique two years later, followed by Citrique Belge in 1929.Exactly how it works isn´t known, but research has found that naturally ocurring citric acid and artifically produced causes different reactions on cells.
Whether that is because there are traces of the poison that black mould can generate, or the bensen that is used to "clean" the acid, is unknown.
But healthy it is definitely not.
Oh, and BTW, that 120 year statement, i do believe that actually hails back from the time when "everyone knows" that new braincells were not created after becoming adult(which is totally wrong).
And research into aging in the last decades have shown that it is completely realistic to retain physical and mental ability of middle age, beyond 80 years of age.
It has also been found that depending on lifestyle, health and genes, people´s "internal age" can vary drastically from their age in years. +-30 years. And since people can already become a good bit over 100, that means it´s already well within the realm of possibility to become over 130.
ti3x wrote:Longevity may be achieved via genetherapy, but it has specific requirements. Genetherapy OTOH has specific capbalilities that would be used to counteract the various problems associated with long-term space travel. The human body is not, at this time, optimized for space.
No it isn´t. But genetherapy is an extremely tricky business, to the point where even when it can be done today, it´s usually better to not risk it.
Also, something you always have to remember about genetics is that there is very rarely a set of "perfect genes".
For example, several genes that are thought to commonly result in high IQ, at the same time often cause healthproblems.
And there´s a gene sequence common in the Nordic nations(and someplace else i forgot) that is slightly bad for the immune system overall, but which grants a small degree of resistance or immunity against some specific types of diseases, like HIV.
And on and on, yes you can in theory take a person´s genetics, store it and then "restore it" after spaceflight induced degredations may happen...
I´ll say it´s a MUCH better idea to come up with radiation shielding that works. We´re already at the point where we CAN make EM shields, so why not?
ti3x wrote:But they'll stop people from staying. Or more specifically, they'll stop them from thriving.
On Mars? Why? Humans as we are today could probably manage fairly well on Mars and Venus as long as the obvious environmental requirements can be handled.
And seriously, we can´t "thrive" on Mars without massive terraforming anyway, and if we manage that, then most of the reasons for genetherapy are already gone.
ti3x wrote:We cannot make each and every space environment safe for us, and eventually the odds will be stacked against us. When you have explorers out there, where they can't even survive without a great deal of infrastructure when they make landfall at their destination, you have a problem.
No, you have a challenge. A challenge that lots of people already today would be completely willing to take on.
If someone, tomorrow, offered a chance to try to settle Mars, with current tech, i know my best friend would be having a very hard time to decide to take the offer or not.
Money is the limiter, the tech we have is already capable of starting limited settlements in space.
ti3x wrote:Same as above. It's the difference between barely surviving and thriving.
No. If we could get cheap earth to HEO lift capacity(and preferably equally cheap "longburn" propulsion), that would instantly allow massive space activity, while even the most superbly perfected genetherapy would probably not even make a noticeable difference.
ti3x wrote:You want to have kids in space? You pretty much will need some ability to have this. Environments fail and people make mistakes. A saying I expect in this environment is something along the lines of: Remember kids, sometimes airlocks...don't.
Designing nearperfect failsafes is quite possible, just costly and less convenient.
If you make it possible to only make critical mistakes by repeatedly taking active actions of a nonstandard sort, then it becomes exceptionally difficult to make those mistakes at all.
A good example is how my brother has by now maintained a computer backbone(for between 5 and 30 thousand users depending on what year) up and running 24/7 without even a single second of downtime, for over 20 years. Because when he took over responsibility, from the beginning he started converting all standards and connections and servers to a setup that would be almost impossible to mess up for anyone, even the techies doing regular maintenance.
And he was given the job exactly because he was set on getting it working with 100% reliability, something others claimed was not possible. 20 years later, the system has never been below 50% capacity.
99% of the systems and >75%(in theory 100%, as it then tries to switch to mobile connections, but those are slow in comparison) of the connecting lines can be physically destroyed without killing the system, it will just be slowed down a little bit ( not much, because local computing power is automatically used more if the servers or fiberoptics are too stressed ).
That´s the kind of design you need both for physical environment as well as the support structure and systems.
It´s not a matter of CAN do, it´s a matter of
WILL THEY DO IT?
ti3x wrote:And it's hardly unrealistic at all.
10 minutes in open space, yes it is unrealistic. Not because it is impossible to do.
But because of the biological pricetag.
What is needed to be able to withstand vacuum?
You´re going to need a body whose skin does not loose heat or moisture for example.
Which results in a person who will die from heatstroke within hours in a normal environment.
Similarly with protection/recovery from radiation(just focusing on gamma isn´t very useful), a body able to repair ALL such damage will require far more energy in total, because it will require a greater and constant activity.
An activity which btw ALSO can end up failing and cause additional diseases.
While protecting against radiation damage, well then you need such extreme amounts of mass that you´re asking for bioblobs rolling around instead of humans.
ti3x wrote:And how are they thriving? Starting families? They are sent there, at pretty great expense, but they don't live there.
For a lot of people, that´s not because they COULDN`T, but because surrounding circumstances do not ALLOW them.
ti3x wrote:The only way space will be anything but a destination for the bravest and most adventuresome, will be if it's able to support more than the occasional one-in-ten-million astronaut.
And that will happen the instant we get cheaper transport to/from as well as in space.
While it still costs thousands of $ per kg into LOW earth orbit, it´s never going to be a place for lots of people to go to, much less to stay.
ti3x wrote:So glad one of us has the imagination to encompass 200 years of cultural development when technologies we have barely grasped will be commonplace.
Take a look at predictions of the future from 100, 200 or 300 years back.
It´s a mix of spot on, "hmm?" and completely nuts. The interesting thing being that even with things completely nonexistant at the time, they could still hit spot on sometimes.
You have an imagination, use it.
And culture, well with history being one of my primary interests, one thing i have found to be a perfect truth is that no matter when in history, people are still people.
How people are, do and interact doesn´t change, only the means and tools.
