Making Babies on Mars

Manifest Destiny or Manifest Error?

A friend who took up creative writing has published the sci-fi book, Our Man on Mars. He drew from knowledge as a professor of engineering and his son, an engineer for the Starship program at Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Musk tweeted on X in September about his ambition to launch missions to Mars: “Flight rate will grow exponentially … with the goal of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years.” These objectives align with the late Stephen Hawking, who not only said we can go but we must, in case a catastrophe renders the Earth uninhabitable. The goal that fiction writers imagined over a century ago will be reached eventually.

However, I wonder if we get so mesmerized by technical advances in space travel that we pay too little regard to human vulnerability because our physiology and psychology adapted during evolution on Earth. I ask if plans to settle on Mars are half-baked. And I worry in particular about braggadocio overlooking the safety and interests of children conceived and raised in a hostile environment. Don’t ask Elon for an answer because siring a large brood of 12 or 13 is not a qualification. Still, his goal of building a “self-sustaining” community of hundreds to thousands of colonists depends on making babies on the Red Planet.

I have no expertise in space science, only a curiosity from long ago as a naïve, young physiologist who applied to NASA’s astronaut program (I never heard back). Nevertheless, probing questions in science and medicine leave me uneasy about the wellbeing of future children.

The book’s main characters are two young lovers, Jane and Tom. They didn’t intend to start a family on the Red Planet, but a pregnancy test threw them into a crisis they would never have had on Earth. Martian law strictly forbids conception. Abortion is mandatory before the 20th week, yet she crosses the deadline to be the first colonist to deliver a child.

Jane didn’t have an obstetrician or a midwife to care for her. A woman today choosing “freebirth” can rush to a specialist in an emergency, but she didn’t have that safeguard and luckily didn’t have to call on it. The early colonists will pray to stay healthy and take extra care to avoid accidents. While space medicine is rudimentary, we suspect more hazards from living on alien soil than we know. Elon beware of elan.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has called for more investment in physics and biology to prepare for a Mars landing and settlement. It mentions reproduction fleetingly, as if an afterthought for a remote possibility. NASA grounds astronauts if they get pregnant, but since private companies have launched space tourism, the probability rises of a pregnant passenger going into space, perhaps unknowingly. Besides, won’t it be hard to foil intimacies happening in quiet corners of Starship, a behemoth rocket that can carry 100 travelers, or during long stays on the International Space Station (I.S.S.)?

No one knows if the fertility of either sex is affected in space. We don’t even know if menstrual cycles will be disrupted because NASA requires astronauts to use contraception. There are entrepreneurs developing ARTIS, a minilab for assisted reproductive technology in space. I chuckle at the hasty impulse to treat infertility before fertility studies get off the ground.

Making babies in space or on another planet or moon will face three problems at least.

Low or No Gravity

Buzz Aldrin made “kangaroo hops” on the Moon because the force of gravity is a mere sixth of on Earth. And on Mars it is a third, still feeble. Microgravity makes astronaut antics look funny, but the biological effects are disturbing. For one thing, body fluids redistribute toward the head and upper body. This is trivial in a four-legged animal whose head is almost in line with the axis of its torso, but in an upright species like us, uterine blood flow and, hence, placental perfusion will be reduced. That will affect gas and nutrient exchange and potentially fetal growth. Until more research, we can’t be sure if the effects are negligible, and other impacts of low gravity are harder to predict, possibly endocrinology, body fluid homeostasis, immunology, and neurology.

Pregnancy is not the end of the matter. How will microgravity impact childbirth? A prolonged space flight or stay on Mars will cause bones to demineralize and muscle mass to shrink from less body weight and effort. Will labor be harder for pushing a baby out of the womb and without the benefit of gravity? One thing we can be sure of: there won’t be specialist staff and facilities for difficult deliveries.

Electromagnetic Radiation

Mars doesn’t have a magnetic field, and its thin atmosphere mainly comprises carbon dioxide. This means little shielding from galactic cosmic rays (high energy protons and nuclei) and particle events (charged and high energy) from solar flares and coronal ejections that happen at short notice and last for hours or days. Spacesuits protect the wearers from low pressure, low temperatures (-80°F.), and the threat of raining micrometeorites, but they provide no shield against radiation and its mutagenic and carcinogenic effects.

Taking an occasional stroll on Mars won’t harm you except in a solar storm, but repeated exposure to constant radiation is far from trivial. It will expose you to 100-times as much as in the background on Earth and several times more than inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone except for hot spots around the “sarcophagus” covering the nuclear reactor. To anyone upbeat about breeding on Mars, I ask if they would approve of families moving back to their abandoned flats at Chernobyl. If it is too dangerous for the public, then multiply the risks by ten for pregnant women. The risks of miscarriage or birth defects from radiation are greatest during rapid fetal growth and morphogenesis in the first trimester. Fatal cancer may occur after birth. I won’t exaggerate risks because they are low but mention them because they are contrary to every precaution we take to safeguard the health of the unborn.

The U.S. OHSA recognizes them by setting the maximum exposure limit for radiation workers at 5mSv (a measure of effective dose) for the duration of pregnancy. The level is ten times higher for non-pregnant workers. NASA imposes a career limit of 550mSv for female astronauts at age 30, a little higher for males, and higher still for both sexes at 50 years old. A low orbit on the I.S.S. exposes them to less radiation than on Mars, and the greatest risk is traveling through interstellar space.

Radiation exposure during spaceflight is mitigated by shielding (lead is too heavy) and its effects are moderated with radioprotective drugs (folic acid is a radical scavenger). Settlers on Mars require dwellings and public buildings that are hardened against radiation, perhaps in domes or underground to live like moles. The Boring Company founded by Elon Musk could win contracts there by applying its tunneling expertise.

I imagine a sequel to my friend’s book in which Jane and Tom still live on Mars a dozen years later.

They now have two children and another on the way, which qualifies Jane for the Governor’s bronze medal, awarded to mothers who contribute the most to colony growth. A gold medal is awarded for 12 children, but she hesitates to try for more because she lost a friend to a botched C-section. The amateur team panicked when droplets of blood floated around the room. Breeding is necessary because the authorities stopped ferrying children to the Red Planet for moral reasons. The kids would be exposed to 300mSv while confined on a voyage lasting over six months.

After the dust storm cleared that kept Jane and her brood underground for two “sols” (solar days), she was eager for sunshine, not for its heat but the joy of seeing the small, glowing orb crossing a butterscotch-colored sky. She helped her toddler to sit in the back of an electric rover (Tesla) before driving off fast enough to avoid the trailing cloud of toxic orange dust stirred up by the wheels. She headed for the Rand Crater, a beauty spot several miles away.

At the rim of the crater, she lifted her daughter, who wore a spacesuit like a small, silvery blimp, to gaze through the haze at the low mountains on the other side of the five-mile-wide bowl. The only movement disturbing the desolate scene was a figure bouncing toward them, her teenage son Dennis headed back to base after exercise.

Jane and Tom were worried about him. Knowing no other life than on Mars, he didn’t have to conquer feelings of isolation and existential threat as they did arriving on Mars. But would he or could he adjust to Earth? He had performed well at school, if you can call it that, and wanted to become an engineer, the most honored profession on the planet. To qualify, he needed to enroll in a four-year college degree on Earth but had never been there, a completely different environment and culture. Would he fall over in unit gravity to break fragile bones and be too feeble to get up? And if he grew to a projected height of seven feet with scoliosis, he might injure or bend his spin.?

Dennis climbed in the back of the rover to ride with them to the grocery store. Jane checked her monitor. So far, the trip had exposed her to 0.1mSv, only a quarter of a diagnostic mammogram and close to a flight from New York to Singapore, and double on the return journey. She estimated the number of similar outings she could take before reaching the pregnancy limit of 5mSv. About 25 trips or one every ten days.

A loud voice in her earphones and the flashing red screen startled her. She took her hands off the steering wheel to listen to the weather station.

“This is an alert! Return to base. Repeat. Return to base. Solar flare warning. Spike intensity 90mSv at 14.00 hours. Take cover immediately.”

She knew the drill as it happened before. She turned around to warn Dennis and asked him to comfort the fidgeting toddler. “Mummy must hurry to the shops.” The motor hummed as it burst into life.

They left their suits on a rack near the entrance of the shopping center. Holding the toddler’s hands between them, they sauntered between food stalls displaying mostly vegetarian fare grown in greenhouses or laboratories. She handed Dennis a gallon of fortified soy milk to carry while she pored over a rack of food supplements.

“I’m tired of algal salads. We’ve had them three times this week, Mom. Can we have cricket fricassee instead?”

“Good idea, Denny. We need to eat more protein. I know you like fried eggs, but I hate wasting when they float off the pan.” The sight of them that would make Earthlings laugh was too familiar to draw a smile on Mars.

“Did I tell you, Mom, I am in contact with James in Boston. He told me they are celebrating his graduation at the beach with hamburgers on the grill or Red Snappers followed by ice cream. What are Snappers?”

“They are slippery animals that live in the ocean. Very tasty.”

He had seen images sent by his cousin, but she couldn’t explain what it felt like to be way over there. He couldn’t imagine the feelings you get diving in the sea and sunbathing in shorts, nor get the aroma of cooking meat or the sight of cows grazing in a meadow. Travelers occasionally smuggled Earth products in. She pined for chocolate he never tasted, but the last time she saw a Mars bar was 15 years earlier.

Tom would be pleased his son was fostering a connection with his cousin’s family. It would be valuable if he moved in a few years, especially if he went to Tufts to study engineering. They could help him adjust to the new environment and avoid rude curiosity. Teenagers can be cruel to their peers. Girls might joke about going out with a Martian and boys give Dennis a hazing.

Mind the Child

The third problem of building a family on Mars is most troubling, in my opinion. Even if boys and girls growing up there complain little because they know no other life, the environment of the barren Red Planet is far less rich in experience and opportunities than the beautiful Blue Planet. Even if physical health is well-preserved, their mental health will be challenged from being under-socialized until the colony is large and complex. Boredom could lead them to substance abuse. Opportunities to roam and explore will be limited and are likely to be discouraged by an overbearing administration that prizes security over freedom.

The Biosphere 2 experiment tested human resilience and resourcefulness in an encapsulated ecosystem thirty years ago. The crew lived self-sufficiently for two years on a three-acre site under a transparent dome in the Arizona desert. At first, the mission went well as they cooperated to grow food and care for each other, but they eventually fell under the toll of loneliness, claustrophobia, and food shortages that led to factionalism and interpersonal strife. Are these inklings of a small community on a distant planet?

The Biosphere doesn’t answer one outstanding question. When all the major engineering challenges of life on another planet are solved, when physical and mental health care needs are met, is it unethical to raise children on an alien planet? On that question dangles the hopes and dreams of building a “self-sustaining” colony.

I have other reservations but leave them for my readers to ponder and will welcome their comments.

Epilogue

A man will land on Mars (naturally a man). This will be a feat not just for the Guinness Book of Records but for the most celebrated chapter in the history of exploration. Who will fill those giant shoes?

Surely, he’ll be a man with immense ambition. He will have achieved all his goals on Earth because there is no guarantee of staying in communication or getting back after a minimum of two years. He should be a healthy man in his fifties, so fewer years are lost from a tragic death or cancer than a younger man. Thus, he will have completed his family size. I expect several children, or 12 or 13, to be sure he is done.

The Martian laureate will be a risk taker, bold and brave, proud and egotistic, hypermasculine and hyperkinetic. This man of destiny reminds me of the engineer-inventor John Galt in Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, a book said to be enjoyed by the young Musk (and a blueprint for Project 2025 and Trumpism). Rand portrayed her hero as a man of principle who dared all and took full responsibility for his invention by testing it himself. That implies our man on Mars will be a rocket-maker.

I realize my list has whittled down the number of suitable candidates. If no others come forward, Elon Must Go!

Image 1: Created with DALL-E (OAI)

Image 2: From RDNE Project at Pexels

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