Fresh produce in space - what's not to like!
For me this is the most interesting part of the payload:
The Planetary Society's LightSail crowd-funded spacecraft will attempt to become the first orbiting spacecraft to be propelled solely by sunlight. It will be released next week from its temporary perch on a spacecraft and opened a week later.
"Our #LightSail2 is up and on its way," tweeted Bill Nye, the society's chief executive officer.
It's the society's third crack at solar sailing: The first was lost in a Russian rocket failure in 2005, while the second had a successful test flight in 2015.
Human bodies evolved to live on Earth, so it's not surprising that space throws us for a loop. Without gravity, astronauts on the International Space Station lose muscle and bone (despite exercising hours each day), start to see poorly, and develop wacky immune systems. And the rogue particles that zip through deep space outside of Earth's protective magnetic bubble threaten to upset the delicate functioning of the human mind as well.
Scientists have known for years that in addition to damaging DNA, the particles of radiation found in deep space also wreak havoc on brains. All of that research, however, came from using a particle accelerator to blast rodents with months- to years-worth of radiation in the span of a few minutes. The first study to test mice under realistic space-like conditions—with the help of a new facility capable of delivering radiation at a slow drip—confirms that neutron and photon particles significantly disrupt their nervous systems. If humans are similarly sensitive, the study claims, multiple members of a five-person crew would suffer neurological symptoms such as increased anxiety or impaired memory during a multi-year mission to Mars.
Rodent astronauts suggest trips to Mars will make us anxious, forgetful, and afraid
Human bodies evolved to live on Earth, so it’s not surprising that space throws us for a loop.www.popsci.com
More possible evidence that humans will not be living outside Earth for very long without bioengineering or some very elaborate and advanced technologies.
Probably not if we consider how young the solar system was 3 billion years ago.
It's going to be a big challenge that's for sure but I'm confident we'll overcome it. Bioengineering of our body's is in its infancy. Over the next century it's going to take off and I suspect we would be stunned at how effective it is at allowing us to overcome everything from radiation to lack of gravity.
I suspect that you're right but we don't know how fast higher order life can evolve as we only have one sample to study!
I suspect if there's ever any prolonged or generational space travel we'll be surprised at how rapidly there's biological adaptation/evolution, albeit aided by bioengineering and technology.
I share your optimism. I suspect that what looks like a daunting problem today will turn out in hindsight to have been easily overcome. At least I hope that's what happens.
It's obviously a long ways off, but bioengineering and tech adaptations seem to be in the early (and obscenely expensive) stages of sci-fi fantasy with robotic prosthetics and such. Same with our utilization of gadgets, i.e. smartphones, to do everything from communicate to navigate and search for information. We will undoubtedly have advancements that are more "integrated" with us in some form or another in a few generations, whether it's something we're interfacing with through something like glasses or something actually chipped or fused into us. People like Elon Musk that talk of us "cyborging" sound ridiculous on the surface but if you evaluate it we seem to be in the dawn of making that possible.
If several generations from now we were to launch some sci-fi esque "deep space" multi-generational voyage to say Alpha Centauri I think it's undoubted that we'd be sending off "humans" that would look like some bizarre mesh of biology and technology to us today. If we actually made it there (and especially back) at our current rate of travel I would think it would be safe to assume that even in a highly specialized travel environment there'd be significant biological changes in height, muscle mass, head shape, eye size, etc. in response to being in space. In short, if we ever came in direct contact with "something" or touched down on a habitable planet the us that finds them/it isn't going to resemble the us of today at all.
All true but it also assumes that light speed is a limiting factor on travel. My guess is that it isn't and in hindsight we might be very surprised at how humanity transits from point A to point B in the Galaxy.
I would say that the advancement in prosthetic's has been rapid and amazing. What they can do now versus just 20 years ago is a sign of how fast this area may develop over the next 20 years.