Dear NASA, Please Bring Biology Back

I love science fiction. I love dystopian science fiction. I love these genres with a passion that defies reason, considering all the boring, consistent assumptions they make about the fate of the human race and our inevitable spread into the great nothingness that is the Universe in all its glory.

Now, one of the reason I love science fiction is because I happen to agree with the inevitable fall of the human race and the final destruction of our home planet because of stupidity, but yeah. It’s a trope. A common thread that you can’t seem to get away from.

Now, in this week’s segment of Sciency Bits, I want to explore some of those basic assumptions a little. Namely, can we actually survive in space? What does it mean to be human when everything in us needs the Earth?

Short answer, I don’t know.

The longer answer is far more interesting.

Here’s what we know. We know that plants can tolerate some levels of cosmic radiation, but that the lack of gravity and nutrient scarcity makes growing really, really hard. Roots secrete an enzyme that helps them find up from down and define their growth structures relative to sunlight and nutrients. Obviously, in space, that’s a no-go. Even hydroponics isn’t a cure-all because the radiation we get protection from in our beautiful blue atmosphere is totally absent, allowing all kinds of DNA-damaging events to occur nonstop. Our poor, planted genetic cousins literally get their insides torn apart and grow as misshapen, crippled things without intense care, attention to detail and an artificial paranoia in recreating as much of the earth as we can physically do at every opportunity.

I actually feel bad for the little guys.

How does that relate to humans?

Sure, there is the obvious parallel about our genetic code being damaged. Our astronauts end up with bone diseases, cancers, skin damage, etc. Great. That’s an easy one. We also know that without gravity, their eyes change shape, lose sensitivity. So does their skin. And sense of taste and smell. Their bones become leached and brittle, muscles atrophy. Higher fat stores are needed to maintain homeostasis with additional cellular metabolic waste that’s produced.

Delightful. All know this. And, as Aaron Sorkin says, ‘There’s no greater crime a writer can commit than telling the audience what it already knows.’

You have my apologies.

The interesting parts that I want to talk about this week are the mental changes. The emotional volatility. The loss of cerebral decision-making skills. The loss of time. Something deep changes in these brains. Something that is tied to the pull of oceans and the breath of forests in a way that we don’t understand. In all our quests for space exploration, we persist in seeing humans as one-off species. Unconnected to the life-webs and ecosystems that define our actual existence. Just because we have air conditioning and rockets doesn’t mean we can discount this connectedness. And there’s no way to quantify it.

I have a hunch that space exploration will be closed to us until we no longer build our ships, but grow them. Until we can genetically engineer and grow a plant that is capable of becoming a sustainable life ship, an ecosystem that we can grow into instead of merely fly. And yes, there are practical benefits of this method. Self-healing systems, for example, that can compensate for shocks and conduct self-maintenance. Expense. Long-term sustainability. These are all the usual benefits of turning to biology over machines. But there is something more buried in our brains. Our need to feel other life around us. Our soul’s connection with the souls of other things in the great wheel of life. I think that is a key human parameter that hasn’t even been touched in our current space exploration plan. All this talk of going to Mars and building lunar bases. Of using machines and chemicals without any soul, any heart rings false to me. Humans need life and life needs humans. We’re the same.

Strangely enough, NASA hasn’t contacted me back about building Life Ships instead of rockets.

Shame.

And yes, of course, we would have to use our current machines and technologies to develop breeding programs and creatures in space, but we already have genetic models to work from. The tardigrade - a powerhouse of a creature that doesn’t seem to mind freezing cold, blistering heat, desiccation, radiation, or evisceration. There are several earth creatures that are effectively immortal, as long as you don’t do something rash like cut off their heads. The models exist. And our own body is a life raft for bacteriological and microbiological ecosystems that are so closely intertwined, we can’t actually differentiate between ‘us’ humans and ‘them.’

What if we made a ship like that? A ship you could feel was sick? A ship you could heal with a touch? A ship that could be grown and tended to with love and attention, not just book learning and metal bones? We could graft biological material onto plastic and metal to control the shape, but then let it breathe and adapt to the conditions we face, whether that be Mars, the Moon, or just the unrelenting black of space travel itself.

So, what do you say NASA? Bring biology back?