Scott Solomon

Yeah, and actually you've eliminated one of the constraints that has existed throughout human evolution.

because of that.

That's why I bring up this one specific challenge that I think we maybe haven't thought through enough yet.

And that, as you said, could lead to all sorts of other downstream consequences.

So bottom line is we don't know whether human reproduction is in fact possible in the conditions on Mars.

So this is one thing I think it would actually be relatively straightforward to do a lot of research, even in the low Earth environment,

excuse me, low Earth orbit environment that would help us to kind of get a little bit more insight into that.

Yeah.

So, okay.

Here's the thing that I will say about that.

So speciation, right?

Formation of new species.

This is something, you know, I talk about this in my classes with my students all the time.

It's not a black and white thing like, oh, now it's a new species, right?

We as biologists debate constantly all the time about, you know, how to even define a species.

Where do you draw the boundaries between one species and another?

So partly it depends on on that.

But that's sort of dodging the question, which is not what I'm trying to do.

I think the real question is, like, how rapidly would you get individuals on Mars that we would recognize as being distinct from us?

Right.