Astronauts and commercial space travelers are subject to damaging radiation and microgravity, along with other potential injuries. We need better ways

Space travel is dangerous. Could genetic testing and gene editing make it safer?

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2024-09-28 02:30:06

Astronauts and commercial space travelers are subject to damaging radiation and microgravity, along with other potential injuries. We need better ways to protect them.

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.

Recently, global news has been pretty bleak. So this week, I’ve decided to focus my thoughts beyond Earth’s stratosphere and well into space. A couple of weeks ago, SpaceX launched four private astronauts into orbit, where they performed the first ever spacewalk undertaken by private citizens (as opposed to astronauts trained by national agencies).

Commercial spaceflight is now officially a thing. But is it a transcendent opportunity for the masses, or just another way for rich people to show off?

The company has more ambitious plans for space travel, and it’s not alone. Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, claimed on Sunday that he would launch uncrewed missions to Mars within two years, and crewed missions four years after that if the uncrewed missions were successful. (Other SpaceX timelines for reaching the Red Planet haven’t panned out.) NASA refers to Mars as its “horizon goal for human exploration.” China previously announced plans for a human mission as early as 2033 and recently moved up its timeline for an uncrewed sample return mission by two years. And the UAE has a 100-year plan to construct a habitable community on Mars by 2117.