AS NASA gears up to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s, scientists are brewing new ways to help them survive the trip.

One wacky option is to modify the DNA of space explorers to make them super strong and cancer or pain resistant using controversial gene-editing technology.

Much like Sam Worthington in the 2018 Sci-Fi flick The Titan, astronauts would be engineered to deal with the toll of long-distance space travel.

Nasa-backed researchers have already begun to investigate the possibility, reports The Times.

One experiment at Cornell University in New York is looking at taking a gene from a tiny but hardy creature and inserting it into humans.

The tardigrade, also known as the water bear, is smaller than a grain of table salt with a remarkable resistance to cosmic radiation.

3

Scientists hope to take the gene that grants them this resistance and implant it into astronauts to help them survive the cancer-causing cosmic rays they'll face during space missions.

"We'll protect the astronauts physically, we'll protect them pharmacologically," Dr Christopher Mason, lead scientists on the project, told The Times.

"But could we protect them genetically, with armour on the inside of their cells?"

The technology faces huge ethical and legal hurdles, and remains decades away from ever being implemented.

3

It involves taking the super-gene in question and using a virus to permanently weave it into a person's DNA.

Scientists still have no idea what the long-term effects such a change might have on someone's mental and physical health.

More than 40 other genes that could benefit astronauts have been tracked down by Harvard University geneticist Professor George Church.

One, found in Tibetans, allows them to function at the top of mountains, where there is very little oxygen.

What is gene editing?

Here's what you need to know...

Transferred to astronauts, the trait could help them survive on a limited supply of the gas.

Other genes promise to boost memory and strength, or make someone less sensitive to pain or anxiety.

One, known as the ABC11 gene, is linked with sweat that doesn't smell as bad, potentially benefiting space explorers in cramped spaces.

Gene scientists Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, of the Francis Crick Institute in London, told The Timesthat the tardigrade DNA idea was "an interesting one, but I suspect rather premature".

3

Each change to human DNA would need to go through lengthy assessments for safety and efficacy, he added.

"And there is a question as to who would volunteer to have probably permanent changes made to their [DNA]," Professor Lovell-Badge said.

"It's a type of enhancement which could be considered to be for social rather than personal gain."

Even those behind the experiment admit it's a long way off from a fully-fledged Nasa programme.

How long does it take to get to Mars?

It's not that short of a trip...

"I don't have any plans of having engineered astronauts in the next one to two decades," lead scientist Dr Mason told an audience at a US space conference last month.

Speaking at the 8th Human Genetics in NYC Conference, he said he hoped to have confirmed the modification worked on humans some time in the next two decades.

"If we have another 20 years of pure discovery and mapping and functional validation of what we think we know, maybe by 20 years from now, I'm hoping we could be at the stage where we would be able to say we can make a human that could be better surviving on Mars," Dr Mason said.

In other space news, a bug expert claimed this week that he'd found evidence of insects living on Mars.

A crackpot conspiracy theorist said he'd dug up evidence of asarcophagus on the Red Planet in Nasa photos published in August.

ROCKY HORROR Huge 500-foot asteroid to skim past Earth at 38,000mph on MONDAY, Nasa reveals

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU Hungarian scientists may have found a fifth force of nature

HOT STUFF Giant 50,000C 'Wall of Fire' surrounding our Solar System discovered by Nasa

SPACED OUT Nasa finds astronaut blood moving BACKWARDS on ISS and it could be deadly

NOT SO COOL Botched Elon Musk spaceship test buries launch complex in -196C liquid nitrogen

BIBLICAL FIND Real Noah's Ark 'buried in Turkey' and experts say they can prove it exists

And, Nasa recently managed to record the incredible sound of a "Marsquake" -which you can listen to here.

What do you think of the bonkers GM plan? Let us know in the comments!

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at tech@the-sun.co.uk

See the article here:

Nasa could create GM astronauts designed to be super-strong and feel no pain and send them to Mars - The Sun