Our planet has existed for approximately 4.54 billion years
(Dalrymple, G. Brent, 2001, The Age of the Earth in the Twentieth Century).
Strong evidence of early life, including fossilized bacteria and stromatolites, dates back to around 3.5 billion years ago
(Schopf, 1993; Allwood et al., 2006).
Much later, fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, dated to about 315,000 years ago, provide some of the oldest known evidence of Homo sapiens
(Hublin et al., 2017; Richter et al., 2017).
These data reveal the immense timescale required to shape human biology. It took billions of years for life, and hundreds of thousands of years for modern humans, to adapt precisely to Earth’s gravity, atmosphere, temperature, radiation levels, and chemical environment.
In short, the human body is biologically calibrated for Earth.
Recent press reports indicate that lunar colonization efforts will likely precede any serious attempt at settling Mars. This is, in many ways, auspicious.
It will allow humanity to understand, at an early stage, that without accelerated biological adaptation — including genetic engineering — the human body is not designed for long-term life outside Earth, unless the new environment closely resembles our home planet.
Scientific evidence already demonstrates how fragile human physiology becomes in space environments:
-
Loss of bone and muscle mass
(UCLA Health, Living in Zero Gravity Causes Many Changes to the Body) -
Cardiovascular system alterations
(NASA, Cardiovascular Health in Microgravity) -
Nervous system and balance disorders
(Space Adaptation Syndrome, Wikipedia) -
Immune system dysregulation
(PMC11545902)
In practice, nearly every major physiological system is affected.
The entire human organism suffers under prolonged exposure to microgravity and space conditions.
Very soon, lunar settlements may demonstrate that sustainable human colonization beyond Earth will require biological adaptation, not only technological infrastructure.
All evidence suggests that Elon Musk’s dream of colonizing Mars is currently unfeasible, not because of rocket engineering, but because of fundamental biological limitations.
Recent international press reports indicate a shift in priorities, with increased focus on the Moon before Mars. A post by CNN International on X stated:
“Elon Musk says SpaceX will prioritize sending humans to live on the Moon first, before his plan to do so on Mars.”
This shift is significant. It reflects a growing recognition that astronaut health challenges will soon make clear that Mars colonization is impossible with today’s level of bioengineering.
The author of PQA envisions a future in which genetically engineered humans may emerge, once ethical, scientific, and political frameworks are capable of responsibly managing human genome modification.
Until then, space remains a far more natural environment for artificial intelligence than for biological humans.
It is therefore plausible that AI systems will colonize Mars before any permanent human presence is established.
Our rocket technology is already mature enough for interplanetary travel, and extraterrestrial resources are too abundant to ignore. Space colonization remains a feasible long-term objective — but likely in a world closer to Blade Runner than to traditional human civilization.
Who knows what the future will bring?
