Sex in Space? Shiny!

There's good news and bad news on the Final Frontier Front. The good news, NASA plans a manned landing on Mars 30 years from now. The bad news, NASA plans to still be around 30 years from now. The AP reports:

With NASA planning to land on Mars 30 years from now, and with the recent discovery of the most Earth-like planet ever seen outside the solar system, the space agency has begun to ponder some of the thorny practical and ethical questions posed by deep space exploration.

Come to think of it, if the Earth-like planet in question is Gliese 581c, NASA plans on being around for a mission requiring traveling a one-way distance of 20.5 light years, by comparison with which a round trip to Mars and back of 110 to 200 kilometers is a walk around the block. Either we're much closer to Warp Drive than NASA is letting on, or those boys really believe in long term planning.

Based purely on anecdata, there is a surprisingly large percentage among those of us who generally oppose big government to make an exception when it comes to space. I don't think it has anything to do with economic arguments about capital investment costs, commercial viability or even funding for scientific research. I think space exploration is simply one of those exceptions libertarians are often willing to make to their principles because we grew up reading Heinlein, watching Star Trek, etc. and think space travel is just too damned nifty to let principles intrude. My basic position is that when it comes to wasting vast sums of tax dollars on failed foreign adventures, failed social welfare programs or (even failed) space exploration, I'd rather the money be wasted on space. Your mileage (or light-yearage) may vary.

Still, as fans of, for example, Firefly, realize, one of the real down-sides of humanity finally escaping our terrestrial prison via the likes of NASA is that where the government goes, government goes. Which also means that government consultants, special interest advocates and other parasitic life forms will soon be infecting space, as well.

There are, I suppose, all sorts of things to consider about life in space, though the laundry list of issues currently being considered by NASA seems to range from the sensible to the pointless to the absurd. Were you worried you might have to put in too many hours of overtime in space? Fear not, NASA has already established the 48 hour work week. Should genetic screening, currently prohibited, be used to select crews for long-term space missions? NASA's chief health and medical officer, Richard Williams, says "Genetic screening must be approached with caution ... because of limiting employment and career opportunities based on use of genetic information."

I trust the worry here is over leaked genetic information affecting the person's terrestrial opportunities and not the idiotic notion that we shouldn't screen crews because it would be prejudicial to deny someone with a high likelihood of developing a mission threatening disease or disorder during a long-term mission. But, hey, this is the government we're talking about, so you never know. Medical concerns are real enough, but chances are pretty good that medical advances will keep pace with or outdistance advances in space exploration technology as the decades roll by.

My guess is that, whatever the so-called experts are planning and predicting at this point, by the time there is significant human traffic in space, the model we will rely upon most heavily will be our history of ships at sea and how they, for example, have dealt with medical emergencies and shipboard deaths on the high seas. Unfortunately, I won't live to see much of it happen, anyway. Then again, if we leave the likes of NASA in charge, neither will my great grandchildren.