Microgravity-induced muscle atrophy: Implications for long-duration spaceflights
One of the saddest parts of the science fiction novel _Aurora_ is that natural born human populations will have serious problems permanently separated from the larger ecosystem they&#x27;re evolved for.<p>It&#x27;s a valid hypothesis. Humanity would need to have an entire engineered biosphere to replace the biome living in our guts, our eyes, our . . everywhere. And anywhere we find that&#x27;s close enough to Earth to live in, will have . . <i>something</i> else . . almost certainly[1] already there.<p>Kim Stanley Robinson isn&#x27;t an easy read if you&#x27;re on the other side of the political spectrum, but Aurora is comparatively free of his standard preachiness, at least in my ears. I actually disagree with his primary thesis of Aurora, and the novel suffers from some fundamental problems as a story, but the point is still salient. Humans will have to build their own Earth, wherever they end up, either out there or back here. I have a funny feeling we won&#x27;t learn to treasure our own planet until we find out how much work it is to live on another.<p>[1] Particularly given the extraordinarily early date of the first Terran lifeforms. It doesn&#x27;t seem to take too much to get the ball rolling, unless the panspermia theories actually turn out to hold some water.