

Going into space for 1,000 days presents a series of health risks - Thevet
https://theconversation.com/boldly-going-into-space-for-1-000-days-presents-a-series-of-health-risks-39442

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apsec112
Nobody is ever going to put a permanent colony in microgravity. Colonies will
either be on the surface of a planet/moon, or will use a tether-and-
counterweight to generate artificial gravity through rotation. How to do this
has been known for decades, if not centuries
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity#Rotation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity#Rotation)),
and is trivial compared to the huge engineering challenges of cost-effectively
launching thousands of tons of life support equipment to maintain a viable
population.

~~~
datashovel
Whatever the environment looks like, I think it will take at least several
generations of offspring (born and live their lives in space) to adapt to the
new environment (unless we truly can replicate the space environment almost
identically to earth).

If you think about it, how many millions of years has natural selection spent
adapting humans to Earth? It's almost as if genetic engineering is the only
possibility that humans will adapt quickly enough to make outer space viable
as a livable environment.

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
How is that supposed to work? The pressure of natural selection has already
stopped in most countries, individuals that would have been removed from the
gene pool in more resource constrained times can now reach old age. And that
is a good thing!

We would be venturing into genetic engineering to breed "space humans", which
is at least problematic.

~~~
milspec
Natural selection has not stopped ant can not stop.

Here in the USA, currently trans fats are killing people. Some people can
tolerate trans fats more than other people can. We evolve to tolerate them.

The same goes for every other not-good-for-you kind of thing we eat. People
who tolerate it (or find it nauseating) will survive longer.

Now that many do survive to old age, natural selection can work to eliminate
menopause. Today there are those who hit it at 30 and others who hit it at 50
or even later. Some leave more offspring, and this is all that is needed to
drive natural selection. We evolve, and always will.

