Colonizing Mars has gone from science fiction to popular science in the last few years. If people were born on Mars, how would they have had sex there?
Why do you worry about sex on Mars?
And further preparations for future human colonization on Mars and settlement on the red planet, humanity will inevitably have to replicate there. Researchers from the United States, Poland, and Brazil are debating possible problems related to having sex on Mars.
Their results were published in a June 2018 report in the journal Futures.
Unfortunately, this endeavor comes up against titanic challenges in a range of fields, from space flight technologies to medical, ecological, social and ethical problems, the researchers wrote. We believe that human reproduction in the Mars settlement would be important for the long-term viability of an outer space mission.
Researchers speculated that if humanity were to effectively reproduce and give birth in space, it might actually be a different race due to all the unusual conditions outside Earth.
Challenges of reproduction in Mars
Although the researchers are hopeful about reproducing on Mars, there will be several obstacles that could make reproduction almost impossible.
The greatest obstacle is gravity. Mars has around one third of the Earth's mass, which may jeopardize the possibility of being pregnant. It is well known that long time in space could affect human biological structure, which could shift the form of a person's brain. This is how a new species might be developed.
Lower gravity could lower the blood pressure of an individual needing to participate in sexual intercourse. Scientists now know that low gravity can cause vision issues and lead to a compromised immune system that can be unsafe for pregnant women.
There are other problems, too, due to loss of gravity. There is more solar radiation on Mars, which will reduce the sperm count of a male. More specifically, there is no recorded proof that a woman may have a full-term pregnancy without any complications.
Researchers have concluded that these problems could raise the chances of infection-induced abortions and encourage the spread of diseases among pregnant and non-pregnant individuals.
