New Life on Mars...

louis · 2017-05-17 18:18:36

Procreation on Mars is going to be an issue...

https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 … als-biobag

It looks like science and technology is going to make an artificial womb a real option for pregnancy.

Without wishing to sound too like Dr Strangelove, it does offer up the possibility of rapid human population growth without women having to consent to pregnancy. It could also mean Mars foetuses spent the gestation period in these artificial wombs in space in artificial 1G environments, with artificial replication of the noise and movements of a natural pregnancy. They could be looked after robotically or with minimal human oversight.

Is this the way forward if you want to grow the population quickly without the inconvenience of personal pregnancy?

Early in its history Israel was dominated by the Kibbutz movement - many Kibbutzes sought to raise their children collectively, although it did not prove very popular long term. It's not an impossibility.

Could it be justified ethically? Would society on Mars lose something through not having that mother-child bond? Should the children be biologically related to the Mars settlers or simply fertilised from anonymised donor eggs and sperm? What about the child's rights? Doesn't the child have the right to grow up in an intimate family?

I don't really have any ready answers. I think it would be best to avoid anonymous donors and have the children's biological roots acknowledged within the Mars context i.e. they would have identifiable parents. But a "couple" on Mars (not necessarily themselves in a relationship) might have say 30 or 40 children...How would children be raised if not by the parents? Infant care could probably be largely robotised. But the idea of the equivalent of dormitory schools - like Sparta did - raising the children seems a less than pleasant prospect.

A situation where parents chose to raise two of the children while ignoring the other 38 would not be tolerable and would lead to all sorts of psychological problems.

On balance I think it's probably best to stick with the traditonal family and pretty much natural population growth, although artificial wombs may solve the problems of 36% gravity gestation and the Mars community might wish to encourage and incentivise large families.

RobertDyck · 2017-05-17 19:36:58

We have discussed something similar before. In discussion thread Colonizing the Proxima Planet some raised the idea of sending frozen embryos to other stars, and an artificial womb would gestate them to birth. We discussed how to build such a device.

The article you linked deals with a more difficult problem. Premature babies delivered via cesarean section are missing some things. The baby grows the amniotic sack, amniotic fluid, and placenta. Pre-mie's have all that removed by cesarean section. They have to work with the baby's blood directly. However, a baby gestated from in-vitro fertilization would grow its own placenta, amniotic fluid and sack. Most importantly, you don't have to work directly with the baby's blood. The placenta grows villi like the those in the small intestine. In an adult, villi absorb nutrients from digested food. For a baby, villi absorb nutrients and oxygen from mother's blood. Since there is no direct contact of mother's blood with baby's, we could use an artificial medium. For example, artificial blood (aka blood substitute) based on perfluorocarbon. It would carry oxygen to the baby's villi, and carry away CO2. A heart-lung machine would circulate this artificial liquid, remove CO2 and add oxygen. In the last trimester a dialysis machine would remove waste from this liquid. Again, it isn't blood, and it doesn't enter the baby's body. The embryo or fetus treats it the same way our bodies treat digested food. The liquid would require nutrients added, and the liquid would have to be changed periodically to remove waste. After all, we won't have a mother's liver to break down baby's waste into something her kidneys can remove. A dialysis machine just replicates kidneys, not liver.

Child rearing and societal issues I'll leave for others.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2017-05-17 20:35:48)

RobS · 2017-05-17 20:07:37

There are even bigger issues with genetic modification coming along. It may very well be that most babies in the future will start in vitro, where dozens of fertilized eggs can be started and then only one or two with the "best" genetics would be carried to term. There are huge ethical issues with this technology, which is already possible. It will also be possible to infect embryos with viruses that will go in and modify the genes after the embryo has started to grow.

I have no idea what people will be doing on Mars, because I can't even be sure what the range of choices to middle class humans in Earth will be, 50 years from now. Brave New World seems to be an apt description.

elderflower · 2017-05-18 03:24:45

Unless astronauts are sterilised it will certainly happen that one day one of the females will get pregnant. It may happen despite sterilisation as sometimes the surgery is reversed naturally. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls.

louis · 2017-05-18 03:33:34

In some senses, Mars is a potential "human lab", where we might actually do things better...i.e. avoid the worst of genetic screening and engineering.

One thing I would say though is that free and full debate of these issues has to be encouraged or there is no hope of making the right decisions.

RobS wrote:

There are even bigger issues with genetic modification coming along. It may very well be that most babies in the future will start in vitro, where dozens of fertilized eggs can be started and then only one or two with the "best" genetics would be carried to term. There are huge ethical issues with this technology, which is already possible. It will also be possible to infect embryos with viruses that will go in and modify the genes after the embryo has started to grow.
I have no idea what people will be doing on Mars, because I can't even be sure what the range of choices to middle class humans in Earth will be, 50 years from now. Brave New World seems to be an apt description.

Oldfart1939 · 2017-05-18 08:07:59

Everyone should now read "The Fountains of Paradise," by Arthur C. Clarke; on the Brave New World described therein, the entire colonization took place robotically; children were reared and educated by robots. Best thing was the system of government; leaders were selected randomly by computers. Anyone wanting political power was automatically disqualified and prevented from that choice.

elderflower · 2017-05-18 09:04:34

Then the hackers get to control everything.

Oldfart1939 · 2017-05-18 11:03:01

My favorite formula is: 1 kid + 2 parents = success (most of the time).

elderflower · 2017-05-18 16:22:37

That's what the Chinese have been doing for quite a long time in an attempt to limit population growth. It doesn't always produce well balanced children. Also it selects strongly for genes involved in twin bearing.

Oldfart1939 · 2017-05-18 16:28:41

No couple has to simply stop at 1.

louis · 2017-05-18 17:15:04

The received wisdom is more like 2 kids to 2 parents I think!

Oldfart1939 wrote:

My favorite formula is: 1 kid + 2 parents = success (most of the time).

Oldfart1939 · 2017-05-18 20:47:13

Louis-

That was the model I subscribed to!

SpaceNut · 2017-05-18 21:18:52

Then you better hope for one of each as it will not take long before we are in trouble with sustainability....

Terraformer · 2017-05-19 12:26:05

Don't worry, it averages out.

Most women want 2-3 children, when asked. Given that some will have more and others none, maybe the total fertility rate would be ~2.5? Population will grow, but not particularly fast (replacement rate is ~2.1).

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