Hey Bill.
My name is Victor and I’m from Markham, Ontario.
The question I have for you this Tuesday pertains to human evolution and space colonization.
I understand that humans are constantly evolving to adapt to the environment around us.
For instance astronauts who have gone on long expeditions need to be carried out of their
spacecraft after returning back to Earth.
So what kind of evolutions do you think we might see in humans if we colonize a planet
with lower gravity like Mars?
Thank you.
Victor, Victor, Victor.
This is an excellent question and I appreciate you asking it.
Notice that it is my strong belief that we will not colonize Mars.
It’s a very romantic notion.
You live in Ontario.
I don’t know but it looks like your ancestors came from the west, the left coast of Canada
and a lot of people who first colonized Canada were from Europe.
And we have this vision that you leave your native country because you’re getting religiously
persecuted or someone is making you a good deal on going to a new world where you can
start a new life.
And the people that came to North America from Europe thought this was great.
They were going across North America eating everything, foraging in the forest, cutting
down trees, making farms, finding all these remarkable natural resources, especially in
Canada all these wonderful mineral resources.
And they had a fabulous life.
But everywhere they went there was water and most especially they could breathe.
That is huge.
And I say to everybody who thinks that everybody, he or she who wants to colonize Mars, colonize
Antarctica.
See what you think.
No, no, no, no.
None of this going to the seashore where the penguins are swimming and the orca are eating
the seals and there’s krill for the very large whales.
Go to the dry valleys where it barely gets close to the freezing point of water when
there is water.
It hasn’t snowed or rained in a century.
There’s nothing to eat.
And see what you think really.
See if that appeals to you.
Yes, humankind has a base in Antarctica populated by hundreds of people, many of them are scientists
and they’ve made important discoveries about planetary science, about the Earth and our
environment and climates and so on.
But Mars is a really just inhospitable place.
With that said there’s a movie coming out called The World’s Between Us where a kid
is born on Mars apparently surreptitiously a pregnant woman ends up on Mars against all
protocols or whatever science fiction things they had to put in there to get her there.
And the kid grows upon mars and he ends up, eventually he comes to the Earth and his heart
isn’t strong enough for him to carry on.
He can’t jump and of course he falls in love with an Earth girl and there are some
issues that you always have when Earth boy comes from Mars.
I mean Earth ancestor boy comes from Mars to Earth there’s some problems because he
can’t run or whatever.
It’s like boy in the bubble.
So it might be a cool movie.
I’ve only seen a portion of it but it’s called World’s Between Us which addresses
your question I think from a science fiction standpoint.
Then when you say well how will humans evolve.
Humans are evolving but boy it’s hardly noticeable.
You know humans are all over the earth now and I say all the time they run this test
continually Victor.
Humans from different parts of the world have sex with each other and produce more humans.
But you still end up with a human.
So I’m not sure humans would evolve much on Mars unless there really was selection
pressure.
Only women that could handle the Martian gravity, only the offspring that could handle the Martian
gravity would do well.
Only the human offspring that could handle ultraviolet light perhaps or could handle
bitter cold.
Even when you have a spacesuit there might be cold extremities – your fingers and toes
and stuff.
But that selection pressure would be really slow.
And I just say all the time a science base on Mars, yes let’s go.
A science colony, I mean a human colony where your families are going to retire or raise
kids and build playgrounds, that’s a lot harder thing.
But you’re asking a great question Victor.
Look at the movie and see what you think.
Carry on.