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Humans living on the Moon or Mars would be subject to a rate of bone loss similar to having osteoporosis. No one knows what a stay of just a few weeks will to to our skeletons, but it can't be good. If a solution for this isn't found, there will be no Moon Colony, there will be no Mars Colony. Any long-term manned space missions of duration would have to be either structures that rotate, or accelerate steady at 1 G for a long term, but that is a possibility a century or so away.

FreeDave 6 Nov 3
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at the rate genetic engineering is evolving.. that won't likely be an issue in a decade or two.

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isnt it wild that the people who want to go likely understand its a death trap, but still want to go anyways..
humans are crazy.. and kinda awesome at times.

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It's possible to build rotating structures both in space and on a planet. IMO two Big Falcon Ships (the upper stage of a SpaceX Big F... Rocket) tethered to each other could be placed in orbit around both the Moon and Mars to provide about 200 1g births in the two ships.

Of course it's possible to do a lot of things. The question becomes, "is it worth it?" I personally don't think you have much of a colony if your colonists have to spend a large chunk of their time in some centrifuge every few days.

Addressing bone loss and related issues with genetic engineering is going to make new kinds of humans adapted to specific environments. That will be a one-way street, won't it? The kinds of issues bump into ethics questions.

@OldDave You are right, if colonists must spend a great deal of time in an orbiting centrifuge, it will be inconvenient, but it may be necessary until the genetic engineering solution is practical.

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Having people sleep/exercise in 1g centrifuges might do the trick. The Moon, yeah, you can rotate people out, but frankly if you send someone to Mars long term (or even forever) makes sense. Ultimately it may turn out that Venus is our best bet for colonizing as it is essentially 1g.

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