Scott Solomon

I mean, here's the thing.

You and I could decide that we're comfortable with the risk of going to Mars, right?

And there are plenty of people who I've spoken with who are like, yep, I would absolutely sign up to go.

Exactly.

What happens when you're talking about bringing a child into the world who not only is living in a very dangerous environment, but they might not ever be able to go back to Earth?

That, to me, is a totally different level of ethical consideration.

One thing we haven't really talked about is the idea that, well, rather than just let natural selection, let evolution do its thing, maybe what we would do is take matters into our own hands and use CRISPR, use biological and genetic engineering techniques.

to facilitate, to make it easier for people to deal with the extreme conditions there.

And obviously, there's important ethical considerations about altering our genetics, especially if you're talking about altering unborn children, future generations.

But in some ways, though, the ethics are sort of maybe reversed compared to how we would think about this on Earth.

Because if you had the ability to alleviate suffering,

of an unborn child or of future generations.

And if you didn't do that, is that ethical?

Well, and part of it, I think, is because the question is, OK, you're arguing that this person's life is going to be better.

But are there other ways that you could make that person's life better without making a genetic alteration?

without making such a permanent change.

And so I think any of the potential changes that we might make for a person here on Earth, in most cases, we have other ways of protecting them from that risk or improving their lives in that particular way.

For a child born on Mars,

thinking about the gravity environment or the radiation environment, right?

There might not be any better way of doing it.