Life on other planets has been prophesied for us for a long time. But on the way to an extraterrestrial civilization, the task is to study the conditions of human reproduction in space. As a result, serious medical and ethical problems arise.
In the future, looking back on the history of space flight, people will definitely remember three people: Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong, and the first child to be born in space.
We are already gearing up for the latter: in 2018, NASA sent frozen human sperm to the ISS, researchers are trying to figure out if it will survive in microgravity, and SpaceBorn United is planning missions to conceive and give birth in space (which, according to them, should take place as early as 2028). In addition, in 2016, entrepreneur Igor Ashurbeyli established the entire space state of Asgardia, whose development agenda in 2019 included an item on creating conditions for the birth of a child in space over the next 22 years.
However, many experts look at these ambitious plans, albeit with interest, but not without fear. Scientists have been studying the issue of reproduction in space for a long time, but whether a person is able to continue the race in space conditions is still unknown. Experiments on rats, flies, fish and birds have shown that there will definitely be problems.
So, in 1990, eight quails hatched aboard the Mir orbital station, but they did not have time to live long. In 1999, they managed to move forward and return three chicks to Earth. Initially, the experiment pursued quite “mundane” goals, namely, obtaining another possible source of power for astronauts, but it also showed something else – generation in orbit is, in principle, possible.
Fish were also sent into space – guppies and Japanese orizia, in which fry also hatched. True, they have two huge advantages over humans. Firstly, they live in water, which is why they are initially partially ready for weightlessness. Secondly, fish do not have implantation and early embryonic development, so the experiment is not the most indicative for mammals. In addition, it turned out that the ovaries of fish that had been in space conditions turned out to be impaired, probably due to radiation. Radiation harms the male sex no less: it is known that irradiation can damage the structure of the spermatozoon. In addition, the male reproductive system in space conditions is also subject to changes associated with weightlessness.
The astronauts tried to grow newts from caviar and immediately encountered developmental pathologies: eggs, instead of multiple division (2-4-8) under normal conditions, began to divide randomly in space, which led scientists to draw a disappointing conclusion: women who conceived outside the Earth could most likely collide with early termination of pregnancy.
Earlier, Vladimir Sychev, Deputy Director for Research at the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that the only organism that reproduced well in space was flies, three generations of which were grown on the Photon biosatellite. Some of them returned to Earth, and some went back into space. As a result, it turned out that the returned flies reproduced in weightlessness much more productively than those that remained on Earth.
The main problem of all these experiments is their low applicability to humans. On more or less developed species, an experiment with a full cycle has never been carried out. In addition, a number of studies claim that extraterrestrial children will be viable only in extraterrestrial conditions: their heart, skeleton, muscles and immunity will be weak and designed to live in the absence of gravity.
In addition to technical and biological problems, there are also ethical ones: experiments that affect children and pregnant women in one way or another will always be debatable. Researchers face a very difficult task: to minimize the risks and ensure the safety of both the unborn child and his mother in conditions that are completely different from earthly conditions, poorly understood and to some extent unpredictable. In addition, it is necessary to make sure that the child will be born in an environment in which he or she wants to live at all. Here another question arises: where will such a child grow up? As mentioned above, it is likely that he will be able to live only in space, that is, he may not be adapted at all for functioning on other planets. In addition, psychologically, life in space conditions will not be called easy: such an existence can give rise to a strong sense of loneliness and problems with adaptation.
Despite all these problems, entrepreneurs and researchers do not give up hope that space tourism and the colonization of planets are just around the corner. In their opinion, for survival in the future, it is critically important for people to learn how to reproduce in space. Otherwise, the settlements on Mars and the Moon will remain on the pages of science fiction.