Monthly Archives: January 2023

Guest post by Leo Hohmann

Deborah DeGroff is an author and expert on childrens books, which she analyzes from a biblical perspective. In herlatest article, she peels back the layers of deception in a new book by noted globalist, futurist and transhumanist Yuval Noah Harari.

Some have described Harari, a gifted storyteller, as one of the worlds mostdangerous men. He serves as one of Klaus Schwabs top advisers at the World Economic Forum, has written many books and is a sought-after speaker not only at the WEF but on college campuses worldwide. He has stated that he believes humans are hackable animals devoid of a free will or a soul and that because we accepted mass surveillance during the Covid lockdowns, its just a matter of time before we accept the next step in a coming global technocracy placing that surveillance under the skin.

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But with a brand-new book hitting the bookstores, this marks Hararis first attempt to get at our children. The book, targeting 10 to 14-year-olds, is being heavily marketed and will be the first in a four-part series, so the chances your child or grandchild will come in contact with it at some point are pretty high.

Here is DeGroffs penetrating look at one of the worlds most dangerous men and how hes working to get access to the minds of our most vulnerable and impressionable our children.

By Deborah DeGroff

Who is Yuval Noah Harari and why has he become so influential? What is his message? Does his heavily-marketed new book for children echo the same sentiments he so adamantly feeds his adult audiences?

Professor Yuval Noah Harari is a historian, philosopher, and the bestselling author ofSapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow,21 Lessons for the 21st Century,andSapiens: A Graphic History. His books have sold over 40 million copies in 65 languages, and he is considered one of the worlds most influential public intellectuals today. [Clickhereto read the complete bio on Hararis website.]

Harari was a keynote speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in both 2018 and 2020. His speeches and interviews on various media platforms are watched by millions.

Harari is not shy about stating his beliefs. In a nutshell, in Hararis gospel there is no God, no soul, and no freewill. Once these pillars are accepted as truth by his followersmany of whom are in positions of powerthe next step will be deciding the fate of billions of people who are no longer necessary in a future world that consists of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and transhumanism.

Hararis book,Sapiens,wasendorsed by Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Barak Obama.

Christopher Carbone wrote the article,Humans Will Eventually Merge With Machines, Professor Says,for Fox News in July 2019, stating:

Its increasingly hard to tell where I end and where the computer begins,Harari, a professor of history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, told the audience at the Fast Company European Innovation Festival. In the future, it is likely that the smartphone will not be separated from you at all. It may be embedded in your body or brain, constantly scanning your biometric data and your emotions.

Harari continued: If we told our ancestors in the Stone Age about our lives today, they would think we are already Gods. But the truth is that even though we have developed more sophisticated tools, we are the same animals. We have the same emotions, the same minds. The coming revolution will change that. It will change not just our tools, it will change the human being itself.

In his speech at the 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos, Harari informed his audience that automation will soon eliminate millions upon millions of jobs (creating a large class of useless people). Harari stated:

Old jobs will disappear, new jobs will emerge, but then the new jobs will rapidly change and vanish. Whereas in the past humans had to struggle against exploitation, in the 21st century the really big struggle will be against irrelevance.

And it is much worse to be irrelevant than exploited.

Those who fail in the struggle against irrelevance would constitute a new useless class people who are useless not from the viewpoint of their friends and family, but useless from the viewpoint of the economic and political system.

. . . And what will happen to politics in your country in twenty years, when somebody in San Francisco or Beijing knows the entire medical and personal history of every politician, every judge and every journalist in your country, including all their sexual escapades, all their mental weaknesses and all their corrupt dealings? Will it still be an independent country or will it become a data-colony?

When you have enough data you dont need to send soldiers, in order to control a country.

. . . If you know enough biology and have enough computing power and data, you can hack my body and my brain and my life, and you can understand me better than I understand myself. . . . You know more about me than I know about myself. And you can do that not just to me, but to everyone.

A system that understands us better than we understand ourselves can predict our feelings and decisions, can manipulate our feelings and decisions, and can ultimately make decisions for us.

. . . But soon at least some corporations and governments will be able to systematically hack all the people. We humans should get used to the idea that we are no longer mysterious souls we are now hackable animals. Thats what we are.

. . . In the coming decades, AI and biotechnology will give us godlike abilities to reengineer life, and even to create completely new life-forms. After four billion years of organic life shaped by natural selection, we are about to enter a new era of inorganic life shaped by intelligent design.

Our intelligent design is going to be the new driving force of the evolution of life. . .[Clickhereto read the speech]

Chris Anderson, head of TED media, interviewed Harari in August 2022. Anderson commented that Harari strongly recommends meditation. Harari responded that he meditates for two hours each day and that he does the Vipassana meditation, which he learned from S.N. Goenka.

And . . . my yearly vacation is to go on a long retreat of between say 30 days and 60 days. I just came back last month from a 60-day meditation retreat, Harari says. [Clickhereto listen, starting at 45:20.]

During this interview, Harari tells Anderson he isnt against technology as it can bring enormous benefits to humanity as a whole. He continues that he met [his] husband online in one of the first dating sites for LGBT people in Israel in the early 2000s. [Clickhereto listen. This begins at 40:29.]

Yuval Noah Harari holds great influence with many people in positions of power. Up until recently, this audience has consisted of adults.

Now, Harari is introducing his message to children.

Autumn 2022 saw Harari venturing into the world of childrens books, with the pre-teen seriesUnstoppable Us.Here, he tells the unbelievable true story of humans our all-conquering and insatiable species in a way that is accessible to kids. The series will be published in four volumes, featuring full-color illustrations, starting withUnstoppable Us,Volume 1: How Humans Took Over the World.

Harari includes a Timeline of History at the beginning ofUnstoppable Us.

PART 1, HISTORY OF HUMANITY

He begins with 6 million years ago with a picture of an upright creature that is a cross between a human and an ape. The caption reads that this was the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees.

He follows with a jump to the 2.5 million years ago mark in which he states that Humans evolve in Africa. The Gospel of Harari moves forward another half-million years with the [e]volution of different kinds of humans.

By 400,000 years ago, Neanderthals evolve in Europe and the Middle East and 300,000 years ago, Sapiens evolve in Africa. 70,000 years ago, the Sapiens leave Africa in large numbers. 35,000 years ago the Neanderthals are extinct and Sapiens are the last surviving kind of human.

Planet Earth was once ruled by many different animals . . . But now we humans rule everything: the land, the sea, and the sky. . . . The only reason lions, dolphins, and eagles still exist is because we allow them to.

He concludes this introduction with, AND its a true story.

Chapter 1 teaches the children that millions of years ago, we were just ordinary animals who ate worms and climbed trees to pick fruit. Until humans learned to make tools, the other animals werent afraid of them.

Harari explains that when kids wake up in the night frightened that there are monsters under their beds that this is simply a memory from millions of years ago . . . [when] monsters . . . sneaked up on children in the night. His example is of a lion coming to eat the child. This idea is repeated in the closing of his book.

Next, the humans invented fire.

A single weak human with a fire stick could burn down an entire forest in a matter of hours, destroying thousands of trees and killing thousands of animals.

Now, the humans could cook their food. As a result, humans started to change: they had smaller teeth, smaller stomachs . . . and much more free time.

Harari expands on this by stating that some scientists suggest it was cooking that made it possible for the human brain to start growing.

Once they started cooking . . . humans could spend far less energy chewing and digesting and had more energy to feed big brains. Their stomachs shrank, their brains grew, and people got smarter.

In the next chapter, the children learn that our planet was actually home to many different kinds of humans.

Harari introduces the Floresians and follows with the bigger-brained Neanderthals, and the Denisovans. However, according to him, the Sapiens eventually killed off all of these ancestors.

. . . when the new super-Sapiens reached Europe, they picked allthe pears, ate all the berries, and hunted all the deer. This meant that the local Neanderthals had nothing left to eat, so they died of hunger. And if any Neanderthals tried to stop the Sapiens from taking all the food, the Sapiens probably killed them.

Then our ancestors went to Siberia and took all the food from the Denisovans. And then they went to Flores, and . . . soon there wasnt a single small human or small elephant to be found. And when all the other humans were gone, our ancestors still werent satisfied. Although they were now incredibly powerful, they wanted even more power and more food, so they sometimes fought one another.

The next chapter begins with, You see, we Sapiens are not very nice animals. Often, he concludes, this is due to different skin colors, languages, or religions.

But a few years ago, scientists discovered that at least some of our Sapiens ancestors didnt kill or starve all the other humans they met.

Harari explains that because of our knowledge of DNA, scientists have determined that some Neanderthals had children with Sapiens.I guess Harariintends for these middle-grade students to conclude that some people today are not 100% evil since they have some Neanderthal DNA . . .

Harari then speculates as to what the world would be like today if our ancestors had been nicer and had allowed the Neanderthals and the Floresians to go on living and developing.

PART 2: GOD IS JUST A FAIRY TALE

In Part 2 of the book, Hararis explains why and how Sapiens ended up ruling the world. He says cooperation is what makes us so powerful.

Harari then poses the question:

How did our ancestors learn to cooperate in large numbers in the first place, and how come we can constantly change our behavior?

[Its] our ability to dream up stuff that isnt really there and to tell all kinds of imaginary stories.

If thousands of people believe in the same story, then theyll all follow the same rules, which means they can cooperate effectively.

Lets say a Sapiens tells everyone this story: Theres a Great Lion Spirit that lives above the clouds. If you obey the Great Lion Spirit, then when you die, youll go the land of the spirits, and youll have all the bananas you can eat. But if you disobey the Great Lion Spirit, a big lion will come and eat you!

Of course, this story isnt true at all. But if a thousand people believe it, theyll all start doing whatever the story tells them to do.

He expands on thisjust in case itwent over any of the kids heads. If you say, The Great Lion Spirit wants everyone to give a banana to the priest in the temple, and in return, when they die, theyll receive lots and lots of bananas in the land of the spirits, then a thousand people will bring bananas to the priest.

You could never persuade a chimpanzee to give you a banana by promising him that when he dies, hell go to chimpanzee heaven and have all the bananas he can eat . . . only Sapiens believe stories like that. And thats why we rule the world, whereas poor chimps are locked up in zoos.

Some go fight people on the other side of the world because they believe that a god told them to. Others give lots of money to construct a big building because they believe that a god wants it.

Harari next informs the kids about one of the most interesting games grown-ups play . . . called corporation. He uses McDonalds Corporation as an illustration and informs the children that although you can go to the restaurants or talk to the employees, what they see is not McDonalds as it exists only in our imagination.

. . . If you want to open a restaurant but you dont want to risk losing your socks or going to jail, you create a corporation. And then the corporation does everything and takes all the risks.

The corporation borrows money from the bank, and if it cant repay the money, nobody can blame you for it, and nobody can take your house or your socks. After all, the bank gave the money to the corporation, not to you. And if somebody eats a burger and gets a really nasty stomachache, nobody can hold you responsible. You didnt make that burgerthe corporation did.

Well, money is also just another imaginary story that grown-ups believe. [Bankers and politicians] tell stories like This small piece of paper is worth ten bananas, and the grown-ups believe them.

. . . humans can quickly change the way we behave by simply changing the stories we believe.

Harari then uses France to illustrate the next point he wants to make:

People believed that a great god above the clouds said that France must be ruled by a king and that all French people must do whatever the king commanded. . . . But as long as French people believed this story, they obeyed their king.

He follows with a story about a kings daughter that wanted to rule France.You cant rule France, they said, because the great god above the clouds doesnt like girls very much. The great god above the clouds is a boy, so he made boys much smarter and braver than girls. So a girl cant rule the kingdom of France. Only boys can.And because people believed the story, they wouldnt let girls become rulers. In fact, they wouldnt let them do all sorts of things: . . .

But there are two important things to remember: people need stories in order to cooperate, and they can change the way they cooperate by changing the stories they believe.

On page 72, Harari suggests that someone might have told them stories such as:

The Great Lion Spirit wants us to get rid of the Neanderthals . . . [they] are very strong, but dont worry. Even if a Neanderthal kills you, thats actually a good thing because youll go to the land of the spirits above the clouds, where the Great Lion Spirit will welcome you and give you lots of blueberries and giraffe steaks to eat.

And people believed the story, so they cooperated to get rid of the Neanderthals.

. . . This belief in stories gave our ancestors so much power that they spread all over the world, conquering every land on the planet.

HARARIS CORRUPTED VIEW OF THE FAMILY

Read the rest here

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Noted Transhumanist Now Targeting Our Children: Whats inside Yuval ...

The suggestion that humans will soon set up bustling, long-lasting colonies on Mars is something many of us take for granted. What this lofty vision fails to appreciate, however, are the monumentalif not intractablechallenges awaiting colonists who want to permanently live on Mars. Unless we radically adapt our brains and bodies to the harsh Martian environment, the Red Planet will forever remain off limits to humans.

Mars is the closest thing we have to Earth in the entire solar system, and thats not saying much.

The Red Planet is a cold, dead place, with an atmosphere about 100 times thinner than Earths. The paltry amount of air that does exist on Mars is primarily composed of noxious carbon dioxide, which does little to protect the surface from the Suns harmful rays. Air pressure on Mars is very low; at 600 Pascals, its only about 0.6 percent that of Earth. You might as well be exposed to the vacuum of space, resulting in a severe form of the bendsincluding ruptured lungs, dangerously swollen skin and body tissue, and ultimately death. The thin atmosphere also means that heat cannot be retained at the surface. The average temperature on Mars is -81 degrees Fahrenheit (-63 degrees Celsius), with temperatures dropping as low as -195 degrees F (-126 degrees C). By contrast, the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was at Vostok Station in Antarctica, at -128 degrees F (-89 degrees C) on June 23, 1982. Once temperatures get below the -40 degrees F/C mark, people who arent properly dressed for the occasion can expect hypothermia to set in within about five to seven minutes.

Mars also has less mass than is typically appreciated. Gravity on the Red Planet is 0.375 that of Earths, which means a 180-pound person on Earth would weigh a scant 68 pounds on Mars. While that might sound appealing, this low-gravity environment would likely wreak havoc to human health in the long term, and possibly have negative impacts on human fertility.

Yet despite these and a plethora of other issues, theres this popular idea floating around that well soon be able to set up colonies on Mars with ease. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is projecting colonies on Mars as early as the 2050s, while astrobiologist Lewis Darnell, a professor at the University of Westminster, has offered a more modest estimate, saying itll be about 50 to 100 years before substantial numbers of people have moved to Mars to live in self-sustaining towns. The United Arab Emirates is aiming to build a Martian city of 600,000 occupants by 2117, in one of the more ambitious visions of the future.

Illustration: Soviet artist Andrei Sokolov (mid-1960s)

Sadly, this is literally science fiction. While theres no doubt in my mind that humans will eventually visit Mars and even build a base or two, the notion that well soon set up colonies inhabited by hundreds or thousands of people is pure nonsense, and an unmitigated denial of the tremendous challenges posed by such a prospect.

Pioneering astronautics engineer Louis Friedman, co-founder of the Planetary Society and author of Human Spaceflight: From Mars to the Stars, likens this unfounded enthusiasm to the unfulfilled visions proposed during the 1940s and 1950s.

Back then, cover stories of magazines like Popular Mechanics and Popular Science showed colonies under the oceans and in the Antarctic, Friedman told Gizmodo. The feeling was that humans would find a way to occupy every nook and cranny of the planet, no matter how challenging or inhospitable, he said. But this just hasnt happened. We make occasional visits to Antarctica and we even have some bases there, but thats about it. Under the oceans its even worse, with some limited human operations, but in reality its really very, very little. As for human colonies in either of these environments, not so much. In fact, not at all, despite the relative ease at which we could achieve this.

After the Moon landings, Friedman said he and his colleagues were hugely optimistic about the future, believing we would do more and more things, such as place colonies on Mars and the Moon, but the fact is, no human spaceflight program, whether Apollo, the Space Shuttle Program, or the International Space Station, has established the necessary groundwork for setting up colonies on Mars, such as building the required infrastructure, finding safe and viable ways of sourcing food and water, mitigating the deleterious effects of radiation and low gravity, among other issues. Unlike other fields, development into human spaceflight, he said, has become static. Friedman agreed that well likely build bases on Mars, but the evidence of history suggests colonization is unlikely for the foreseeable future.

Neuroscientist Rachael Seidler from the University of Florida says many people today fail to appreciate how difficult itll be to sustain colonies on the Red Planet.

People like to be optimistic about the idea of colonizing Mars, Seidler, a specialist in motor learning and the effects of microgravity on astronauts, told Gizmodo. But it also sounds a bit pie-in-the-sky, she said. A lot of people approach it as thinking we shouldnt limit ourselves based on practicalities, but I agree, there are a lot of potential negative physiological consequences.

Seidler said NASA and other space agencies are currently working very hard to create and test countermeasures for the various negative impacts of living on Mars. For example, astronauts on the ISS, who are subject to tremendous muscle and bone loss, try to counteract the effects by doing strength and aerobic training while up in space. As for treating the resulting negative health impacts, whether caused by long-duration stays on the ISS or from long-term living in the low-gravity environment of Mars, were not there yet, said Seidler.

In his latest book, On the Future: Prospects for Humanity, cosmologist and astrophysicist Martin Rees addressed the issue of colonizing Mars rather succinctly:

By 2100 thrill seekers... may have established bases independent from the Earthon Mars, or maybe on asteroids. Elon Musk (born in 1971) of SpaceX says he wants to die on Marsbut not on impact. But dont ever expect mass emigration from Earth. And here I disagree strongly with Musk and with my late Cambridge colleague Stephen Hawking, who enthuse about rapid build-up of large-scale Martian communities. Its a dangerous delusion to think that space offers an escape from Earths problems. Weve got to solve these problems here. Coping with climate change may seem daunting, but its a doddle compared to terraforming Mars. No place in our solar system offers an environment even as clement as the Antarctic or the top of Everest. Theres no Planet B for ordinary risk-averse people.

Indeed, theres the whole terraforming issue to consider. By terraforming, scientists are referring to the hypothetical prospect of geoengineering a planet to make it habitable for humans and other life. For Mars, that would mean the injection of oxygen and other gases into the atmosphere to raise surface temperature and air pressure, among other interventions. A common argument in favor of colonizing Mars is that itll allow us to begin the process of transforming the planet to a habitable state. This scenario has been tackled by a number of science fiction authors, including Kim Stanley Robinson in his acclaimed Mars Trilogy. But as Friedman told Gizmodo, thats thousands of years in the making at least.

Briony Horgan, assistant professor of planetary science at Purdue University, said Martian terraforming is a pipedream, a prospect thats way beyond any kind of technology were going to have any time soon, she told Gizmodo.

Screenshot: Still from Total Recall (1990)

When it comes to terraforming Mars, theres also the logistics to consider, and the materials available to the geoengineers who would dare to embark upon such a multi-generational project. In their 2018 Nature paper, Bruce Jakosky and Christopher Edwards from the University of Colorado, Boulder sought to understand how much carbon dioxide would be needed to increase the air pressure on Mars to the point where humans could work on the surface without having to wear pressure suits, and to increase temperature such that liquid water could exist and persist on the surface. Jakosky and Edwards concluded that theres not nearly enough CO2 on Mars required for terraforming, and that future geoengineers would have to somehow import the required gases to do so.

To be clear, terraforming is not necessarily an impossibility, but the timeframes and technologies required preclude the possibility of sustaining large, vibrant colonies on Mars for the foreseeable future.

Until such time, an un-terraformed Mars will present a hostile setting for venturing pioneers. First and foremost theres the intense radiation to deal with, which will confront the colonists with a constant health burden.

Horgan said there are many big challenges to colonizing Mars, with radiation exposure being one of them. This is an issue that a lot of folks, including those at SpaceX, arent thinking about too clearly, she told Gizmodo. Living underground or in shielded bases may be an option, she said, but we have to expect that cancer rates will still be an order of magnitude greater given the added exposure over time.

You can only do so much with radiation protection, Horgan said. We could quantify the risks for about a year, but not over the super long term. The problem is that you cant stay in there [i.e. underground or in bases] forever. As soon as you go outside to do anything, youre in trouble, she said.

Horgan pointed to a recent Nature study showing that radiation on Mars is far worse than we thought, adding that we dont have the long-term solutions yet, unless you want to risk radiation illnesses. Depending on the degree of exposure, excessive radiation can result in skin burns, radiation sickness, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.

Friedman agrees that, in principle, we could create artificial environments on Mars, whether by building domes or underground dwellings. The radiation problem may be solvable, he said, but the problems are still huge, and in a sense anti-human.

Life in a Martian colony would be miserable, with people forced to live in artificially lit underground bases, or in thickly protected surface stations with severely minimized access to the outdoors. Life in this closed environment, with limited access to the surface, could result in other health issues related to exclusive indoor living, such as depression, boredom from lack of stimulus, an inability to concentrate, poor eyesight, and high blood pressurenot to mention a complete disconnect from nature. And like the International Space Station, Martian habitats will likely be a microbial desert, hosting only a tiny sample of the bacteria needed to maintain a healthy human microbiome.

Another issue has to do with motivation. As Friedman pointed out earlier, we dont see colonists living in Antarctica or under the sea, so why should we expect troves of people to want to live in a place thats considerably more unpleasant? It seems a poor alternative to living on Earth, and certainly a major step down in terms of quality of life. A strong case could even be made that, for prospective families hoping to spawn future generations of Martian colonists, its borderline cruelty.

And thats assuming humans could even reproduce on Mars, which is an open question. Casting aside the deleterious effects of radiation on the developing fetus, theres the issue of conception to consider in the context of living in a minimal gravity environment. We dont know how sperm and egg will act on Mars, or how the first critical stages of conception will occur. And most of all, we dont know how low gravity will affect the mother and fetus.

Seidler, an expert in human physiology and kinesiology, said the issue of human gestation on Mars is a troublesome unknown. The developing fetus, she said, is likely to sit higher up in the womb owing to the lower gravity, which will press upon the mothers diaphragm, making it hard for the mother to breathe. The low gravity may also confuse the gestational process, delaying or interfering with critical phases of the fetus development, such as the fetus dropping by week 39. On Earth, bones, muscles, the circulatory system, and other aspects of human physiology develop by working against gravity. Its possible that the human body might adapt to the low-gravity situation on Mars, but we simply dont know. An artificial womb might be a possible solution, but again, thats not something well have access to anytime soon, nor does it solve the low-gravity issue as it pertains to fetal development (unless the artificial womb is placed in a centrifuge to simulate gravity).

A strong case can be made that any attempt to procreate on Mars should be forbidden until more is known. Enforcing such a policy on a planet thats 34 million miles away at its closest is another question entirely, though one would hope that Martian societies wont regress to lawlessness and a complete disregard of public safety and established ethical standards.

For other colonists, the minimal gravity on Mars could result in serious health problems over the long term. Studies of astronauts who have participated in long-duration missions lasting about a year exhibit troubling symptoms, including bone and muscle loss, cardiovascular problems, immune and metabolic disorders, visual disorders, balance and sensorimotor problems, among many other health issues. These problems may not be as acute as those experienced on Mars, but again, we simply dont know. Perhaps after five or 10 or 20 years of constant exposure to low gravity, similar gravity-related disorders will set in.

Seidlers research into the effects of microgravity suggests its a distinct possibility.

Yes, there would be physiological and neural changes that would occur on Mars due to its partial-gravity environment, she told Gizmodo. Its not clear whether these changes would plateau at some point. My work has shown an upward shift of the brain within the skull in microgravity, some regions of gray matter increases and others that decrease, structural changes within the brains white matter, and fluid shifts towards the top of the head.

Seidler said some of these changes scale with the duration of microgravity exposure, from two weeks up to six months, but she hasnt looked beyond that.

Illustration: Cover of Martian Time Slip by Philip K. Dick. (1964, Ballantine Books)

Some of these effects would have to eventually plateauthere is a structural limit on the fluid volume that the skull can contain, for example, she said. And, the nervous system is very adaptable. It can learn how to control movements in microgravity despite the altered sensory inputs. But again, its unclear what the upper limits are.

The effects of living in partial gravity compared to microgravity may not be as severe, she said, but in either case, different sensory inputs are going into the brain, as theyre not loaded by weight in the way theyre used to. This can result in a poor sense of balance and compromised motor functions, but research suggests astronauts in microgravity eventually adapt.

There are a lot of questions still unanswered about how microgravity and partial gravity will affect human physiology, Seidler told Gizmodo. We dont yet understand the safety or health implications. More needs to be done.

Astronauts who return from long-duration missions have a rough go for the first few days back on Earth, experiencing nausea, dizziness, and weakness. Some astronauts, like NASAs Scott Kelly, never feel like their old selves again, including declines in cognitive test scores and altered gene function. Work by NASAs Scott Wood has shown that recovery time for astronauts is proportionate to the length of the missionthe longer the mission, the longer the recovery. Disturbingly, we have no data for microgravity exposure beyond a year or so, and its an open question as to the effects of low gravity on the human body after years, or even decades, of exposure.

With this in mind, its an open question as to how Martian colonists might fare upon a return visit to Earth. It might actually be a brutal experience, especially after having experienced years in a partial gravity environment. Children born on Mars (if thats even a possibility) might never be able to visit the planet where their species originated.

And these are the health issues we think might be a problem. A host of other problems are likely to exist, giving rise to Martian-specific diseases affecting our brains, bodies, and emotional well-being. The human lifespan on Mars is likely to be significantly less than it is on Earth, though again, we simply dont know.

Finally, theres the day-to-day survival to consider. Limited access to fundamental resources, like food and water, could place further constraints on a colonys ability to grow and thrive.

Establishing stable resources to live off for a long period of time is possible, but itll be tough, said Horgan. Well want to be close to water and water ice, but for that well have to go pretty far north. But the further north you go, the rougher the conditions get on the surface. The winters are cold, and theres less sunlight.

Colonists will also need stable food sources, and figure out a way to keep plants away from radiation. The regolith, or soil, on Mars is toxic, containing dangerous perchlorate chemicals, so that also needs to be avoided. To grow crops, colonists will likely build subterranean hydroponic greenhouses. This will require specialized lighting, genetically modified plants designed specifically for Mars, and plenty of water, the latter of which will be difficult to source on Mars.

People dont realize how complicated this is, said Horgan. Trying to think about establishing colonies to point of what we would consider safe will be a big challenge.

Technological solutions to these problems may exist, as are medical interventions to treat Martian-specific diseases. But again, nothing that we could possibly develop soon. And even if we do develop therapies to treat humans living on Mars, these interventions are likely to be limited in scope, with patients requiring constant care and attention.

As Martin Rees pointed out, Mars and other space environments are inherently hostile for humans, but as he wrote in his book,

[We] (and our progeny here on Earth) should cheer on the brave space adventurers, because they will have a pivotal role in spearheading the post-human future and determining what happens in the twenty-second century and beyond.

By post-human future, Rees is referring to a hypothetical future era in which humans have undergone extensive biological and cybernetic modifications such that they can no longer be classified as human. So while Mars will remain inaccessible to ordinary, run-of-the-mill Homo sapiens, the Red Planet could become available to those who dare to modify themselves and their progeny.

A possible solution is to radically modify human biology to make Martian colonists specially adapted to live, work, and procreate on the Red Planet. As Rees wrote in On the Future:

So, because they will be ill-adapted to their new habitat, the pioneer explorers will have a more compelling incentive than those of us on Earth to redesign themselves. Theyll harness the super-powerful genetic and cyborg technologies that will be developed in coming decades. These techniques will be, one hopes, heavily regulated on Earth, on prudential and ethical grounds, but settlers on Mars will be far beyond the clutches of the regulators. We should wish them good luck in modifying their progeny to adapt to alien environments. This might be the first step towards divergence into a new species. Genetic modification would be supplemented by cyborg technologyindeed there may be a transition to fully inorganic intelligences. So, its these space-faring adventurers, not those of us comfortably adapted to life on Earth, who will spearhead the posthuman era.

Indeed, modifying humans to make them adaptable to living on Mars will require dramatic changes.

Our DNA would have to be tailored specifically to enable a long, healthy life on Mars, including genetic tweaks for good muscle, bone, and brain health. These traits could be made heritable, such that Martian colonists could pass down the characteristics to their offspring. In cases where biology is not up for the task, scientists could use cybernetic enhancements, including artificial neurons or synthetic skin capable of fending off dangerous UV rays. Nanotechnology in the form of molecular machines could deliver medicines, perform repair work, and eliminate the need for breathing and eating. Collectively, these changes would result in an entirely new species of humanone built specifically for Mars.

Synthetic biologist and geneticist Craig Venter believes this is a distinct possibilityand a tantalizing prospect. While delivering a keynote address at a NASA event in 2010, Venter said, Not too many things excite my imagination as trying to design organismseven peoplefor long-term space flight, and perhaps colonization of other worlds.

Like some of the other solutions proposed, this wont happen any time soon, nor will it be easy. And it may not even happen. Which brings a rather discouraging prospect to mind: We may be stuck on Earth.

As Friedman pointed out, this carries some rather heavy existential and philosophical implications. If humans cant make it to Mars, it means were destined to be a single-planet species, he said. Whats more, it suggests extraterrestrial civilizations might be in the same boat, and that the potential for intelligent life to spread throughout the universe is very, very gloomy, he told Gizmodo.

If we cant make it to a nearby planet with an atmosphere, water, and a stable surfacewhich in principle suggests we could do itthen certainly were not going to make it much beyond that, said Friedman. But if were doomed to be a single-planet species, then we need to recognize both psychologically and technologically that were going to have live within the limits of Earth.

Which is a good point. That we may eventually become an interplanetary or interstellar species remains an open question. We must work to make this futuristic prospect a reality, but until then, we have to make sure that Earththe only habitable planet we know ofremains that way.

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Humans Will Never Colonize Mars - Gizmodo