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Disease May Prevent Manned Journey To Mars
Pickens writes "Science Daily News reports that human missions to Mars and all other long-term space flights might be compromised by disease, first because space travel appears to weaken astronauts' immune systems; and second, because it increases the virulence and growth of microbes. 'When people think of space travel, often the vast distances are what come to mind first,' says Jean-Pol Frippiat from Nancy-University in France, 'but even after we figure out a way to cover these distances in a reasonable amount of time, we still need to figure out how astronauts are going to overcome disease and sickness.' Frippiat says studies show that immune systems of both people and animals in space flight conditions are significantly weaker than their grounded counterparts and that common pathogens such as Salmonella, E. coli and Staphylococcus reproduce more rapidly in space flight conditions, leading to increased risk of contamination, colonization and serious infection."
This isn't a first post, but it's the only Ice Pirates reference on Slashdot.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
There have been ISS Expeditions that have lasted times comparable to at least one way to Mars - Expeditions 4, 6, 8 and 13 at least. There is no microbiological difference between orbiting the Earth and going to Mars, so I would conclude that people should be able to get to Mars just fine.
I still think that truly deep space exploration will require artificial gravity (i.e., spinning spacecraft), but this sounds like FUD to justify research funds to me.
Boy how would those trips compare to early the first voyages to the "New World", except that they will probably be more clean, more antiseptic, and their health will be monitored much more closely.
What's worse tuill now no one has pointed this out. What pussies we've become.
You need somewhere to send yourself or life in general, to "diversify your portfolio", to not be "keeping all your eggs in one basket", in case of a catastrophy down here on Earth. In a sense you live for life, to protect life, and to maintain life. If survival of silicon/metal robotic AI machines is sufficient in your opinion as a form of survival of life, without survival of chemical machine humans, animals, plants, then you can just send your AI off to outer space. But the rest of us love nature, trees, animals and our meatbag selves, and would like to see our children, or whatever meatbag stuff evolves from them, and whatever stuff evolves from trees too, survive on forever. That's our job on this planet, so we can die calmly, making sure that others live on. You have a duty of self interest to make sure that you live on, but balanced by a duty of making sure that the whole lives on. What else is the purpose of life? To fuck, shoot, kill, enjoy yourself without paying attention to what and who you cut in the name of your self interest, and bring the whole world down with you when you get pissed because it's your time to go out and depart? You will never die in peace when you make yourself the center of your world. You have to take care of yourself as a taking part in taking care of the whole, but ultimately, you don't live forever. But life, and meat, in general, has a chance to.
It's hard to say what happens when metal/silicon gets smarter than meat. I am meat, and I care about meat, and green plants like trees too. I chop wood, but I want to see trees in general exist forever. In a sense trees are my very distant siblings, and we share a common eukaryote ancestor going back 2 billion years ago. I also care about non eukaryote life, with whom I share a common ancestor going back to 3 billion years ago. Metal/silicon machines and automation that I create can help me get less tired and get things done that I can't do myself, and that's a big deal, but I don't want to make it so good that I have to fight or compete against it, because I know I would lose. One has to be careful with developing super strong AI if one wants to survive. Can cooperation between metal/silicon and meat be guaranteed forever? What happens when a smarter predator than us appears? Will we be to them as chickens are to us? And more importantly, do they get judged the same way during last judgment day as we do and go to the same Inferno or Paradiso that we do for committing sins?