\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n By Alan Boyle<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n March 8, 2025<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Let\u2019s face it: Space is a hostile environment for humans. Even on Mars, settlers might have a hard time coping with potentially lethal levels of radiation, scarce resources and reduced gravity.<\/p>\n In \u201cMickey 17\u201d \u2014 a new sci-fi movie from Bong Joon Ho, the South Korean filmmaker who made his mark with \u201cParasite\u201d \u2014 an expendable space traveler named Mickey (Robert Pattinson) is exposed over and over again to deadly risks. And every time he\u2019s killed, the lab\u2019s 3D printer just churns out another copy of Mickey.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s dying to save mankind,\u201d the movie\u2019s poster proclaims.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s possibly to create 3D-printed body parts for implantation, the idea of printing out a complete human body and restoring its backed-up memories is pure science fiction. Nevertheless, Christopher Mason, a Cornell University biomedical researcher who studies space-related health issues, is intrigued by the movie\u2019s premise.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you could 3D print a body and perfectly reconstruct it, you could, in theory, learn a lot about a body that\u2019s put in a more dangerous situation,\u201d he says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast. \u201cI think the concept of the movie is actually quite interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n Mason explores the ways in which the human body can be optimized for living in space in a book titled \u201cThe Next 500 Years: Engineering Life to Reach New Worlds.\u201d He argues that it\u2019s up to us humans to ensure the long-term future of life in the universe by taking the tools of evolution into our own hands.<\/p>\n Even if we\u2019re able to avoid blowing ourselves up, or succumbing to the effects of climate change, we have only about a billion years before the sun reaches a level of activity that would make Earth unlivable.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to think about preserving life, which necessitates us going to other planets and eventually other stars,\u201d Mason says. \u201cBecause humans are the only species with an awareness of extinction, this gives us a unique duty toward life \u2026 what I call a deontogenic sort of principle, the genetic duty toward all life.\u201d<\/p>\n Christopher Mason studies beneficial genetic changes. (Credit: Weill Cornell Medicine) <\/em><\/p>\n The good news is that we can adjust to many of the rigors of spaceflight, at least temporarily. Mason and other researchers saw that when they monitored the health of NASA astronaut Scott Kelly during his nearly yearlong stint on the International Space Station in 2015-2016. They compared Kelly\u2019s physical and genetic profile with that of his twin brother, Mark Kelly, who was monitored down on Earth.<\/p>\n The NASA-sponsored Twins Study found that Scott Kelly experienced changes in the ways that his genes and his immune system worked while he was in space \u2014 possibly because of radiation exposure and other space-related stresses.<\/p>\n \u201cMore than 90% of these changes really seemed to come back to normal within a few months being back on Earth,\u201d Mason said. But some of the changes were longer-lasting.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s this nagging question of this small percentage of genes and functions that were perturbed that we\u2019re still studying to this day in other crews, with SpaceX and other commercial providers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The stresses of the space environment are likely to become more concerning as explorers and settlers go beyond Earth orbit and our planet\u2019s protective magnetic shield. Which gets us back to the things that can kill Mickey 17 and other earthly life forms.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \n