Space Travel Might Not Be For Us
Kierstynn Bush & Zakkary Gaston
Is Space Travel For Us?
The Main Problem...
The Ark Experiment
Microbes
Another problem is the effects on our microbiomes. About eighty percent of the DNA in our bodies is not human DNA, but the DNA of smaller creatures, called microbes. Together they make up a system in the human body called a microbiome. Our microbiome has to be balanced for us to be healthy. The microbiome system co-evolved on Earth in a particular set of physical influences, including Earth’s gravity, atmosphere and chemical make-up. Traveling to the stars means leaving all these influences, and trying to replace them artificially without knowing what might happen. Any ark would therefore be an experiment, its inhabitants lab animals. The first generation of the humans aboard might have volunteered to be experimental subjects, but their descendants would not have. These generations of descendants would be born into a set of rooms a trillion times smaller than Earth, with no chance of escape.
Success Would Be Extremely Unlikely
Precautions
Important Vocabualry
- Air- A mixture of gases that surrounds the Earth
- Asteroids- Large rocky objects or very small planets
- Comet- A giant ball of rock and ice
- Dwarf Planet- A small round planet that orbits the Sun
- Gravity- A force that pulls two objects together
- International Space Station- A huge laboratory floating in space high above Earth.