# Space migration by genetically engineered humans
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-migration-by-genetically-engineered-humans/698210
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [September 11, 2014, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-migration-by-genetically-engineered-humans/698210 "2014-09-11T17:58:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2014, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-migration-by-genetically-engineered-humans/698210/21 "2014-09-12T15:41:16Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#):
>
> We’d need eyes or some kind of antenna with at least the same diameter/length as the relevant radio wavelength.
Maybe that’s why cartoon space creatures usually have antennae!
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2014, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-migration-by-genetically-engineered-humans/698210/22 "2014-09-12T16:47:51Z")
> [@Lumpy](#):
>
> Reportedly some bacteria can actually [live on electricity](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/nature/bacteria-can-survive-electricity-alone/) etc. etc.
My thoughts exactly.
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-migration-by-genetically-engineered-humans/698210/23 "2014-09-12T16:49:54Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I imagine humans with more flexible necks to improve their three-dimensional awareness would fare better than unmodified humans, and gripping toes to retain a handhold where necessary.
A sort of Humaeleon ?
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2014, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-migration-by-genetically-engineered-humans/698210/24 "2014-09-12T16:52:17Z")
Guy makes a good point, you’ll never be able to terraform an exact replica of Earth, certainly not in this solar system, so you would be forced to either live in sealed dwellings venturing out only in a suit, or to alter the genotype.
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### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-migration-by-genetically-engineered-humans/698210/25 "2014-09-13T04:36:37Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> What sort of genetic manipulation will be needed in order to colonize space ?
>
> I’m assuming that it will in the future be easier and more necessary to modify the genome than to modify the environment.
>
> How to cope with the gravity on Mars, for instance ? Sci Fi films have artificial gravity but that seems like an impossibility now.
>
> And also, at what point will future space migrant be deemed to be a separate species, unable to breed with Homo Sapiens Sapiens ?
Science fiction is replete with different methods of space colonization. Generation ships seem the most likely. We would eventually evolve to this new environment on these generation ships and we would no longer look for planets that approximated earth, we would look for planets that approximated the generation ship.
Another is to put frozen embryos in a robot that goes out there and finds us planets before they that out and grow the embryos into human babies. The robots raise the children and teach them what they need to know to build their own “seeder robots” Any genetic manipulation to adapt to the newfound planets would be done by the robots.
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### Author:  [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-migration-by-genetically-engineered-humans/698210/26 "2014-09-13T05:04:42Z")
> [@Yllaria](#):
>
> From her descriptions of the difficulties of excretion containment systems in space, I’d say engineer a human that can poop like a sheep - in little, dry ovals that fall away easily, that can be easily entrained by air-flow, and that compost easily.
They are gonna send opiate addicts into space?
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2014, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-migration-by-genetically-engineered-humans/698210/27 "2014-09-14T04:05:47Z")
Some pretty imaginative people around here.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2014, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/space-migration-by-genetically-engineered-humans/698210/28 "2014-09-14T21:24:13Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> Guy makes a good point, you’ll never be able to terraform an exact replica of Earth, certainly not in this solar system, so you would be forced to either live in sealed dwellings venturing out only in a suit, or to alter the genotype.
Of course, you can’t alter the genotype of a living person. You can gene-engineer an embryo – but where is the child going to be raised by its unmodified-human parents?
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