Recent scientific studies have revealed some cold, hard facts about what human procreation could mean once we start long space trips and visits to other planets such as Mars.
According to a Space.com report, women traveling to Mars could be sterilized from radioactive particles “bombarding” the spacecraft while en route to the red planet.
“The present shielding capabilities would probably preclude having a pregnancy transited to Mars,” radiation biophysicist Tore Straume of NASA Ames Research Center, lead author of the review published in the Journal of Cosmology said in the article.
Those same particles, which are generated from sun flares and other outer space phenomena, could also impact the reproductive systems of males, according to the article.
The report said that even streams of low dose radioactive particles would likely damage egg cells in females and sperm cells in males.
Children conceived in space could also face damage to cells as they develop, such as the brain, possibly causing mental challenges and other detrimental conditions.
If that’s not bad enough, the report said that once on Mars, the lower gravitational pull, about one-third that of the Earth, would impact muscle development and the normal growth processes that we take for granted here, according to a BGR.com article.
Ray Bradbury envisioned this in "The Martian Chronicles." To read more, click here.