You may be right. However, I’m very skeptical of any claim that mechanisms which function as ionizing radiation damage mitigation in single celled and very simple organisms could be applied to complex organisms. We seem a long way from having a method of preventing ionizing radiation induced cancer and that’s what we are talking about.
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It wasn’t that bad, and I thought it was super realistic when that one guy’s skin…lost functional coherence from the mad genetic tampering.
And not just the radiation; what about the fact that mars has no carbon to make a biosphere with? Until several hundred comets made of hydro-carbons are dropped onto the surface, and several million years pass, mars will always be a deadly, radioactive waste made of iron/silica, razor blade sand.
As I recall, in the third act it took a sharp turn from interesting sci-fi to bonkers mad-scientist movie. Flaws aside it was certainly entertaining…
With apologies for derailing
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Mars atmosphere is 96% carbon dioxide. You can get plenty of carbon and oxygen if you have an energy source.
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That bone gene is LRP5, not LRPD5. (It’s correct in the quoted Wired article.)
Even leaving aside the gulf between this sort of sci-fi and the actual state of “genetic engineering”, we would be talking here about germ-line modification, i.e. changes made to your genome before you’re born.
There are some ethical problems with that, but more immediately, this is not even an answer to the problem it means to address, which is “how could I go to Mars?” You’d still have to be someone else. Why not just focus on sending robots?
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Humans and other mammals already have cellular mechanisms for DNA repair. DNA damage happens all the time, and whether that damage is lasting or transient depends upon whether those repair mechanisms can keep up with the damage.
Another form of radiation resistance is melanin. For UV light damage resistance, melanin is pretty effective. TiO2 deposition in dead skin cells would be even better, and protect deeper into the spectrum.
Oh, getting not-cancer out of a mechanism used for resilience mostly in single celled organisms(and probably tardigrades) is definitely left as an exercise for the reader.
My point was merely that the fact that radiation cannot be stopped from damaging DNA is, while true, orthogonal to the techniques radiation resistant lifeforms use; so the fact that it’s hopeless doesn’t prevent evolved radiation resistance from working just fine.
Making them cooperate with the mechanisms used to regulate cellular proliferation in multicellular organisms is probably going to be vexing; but not because they don’t work.
Sure, as long as we wear our sunscreen and don’t spend a lot of time outside. Otherwise you run the risk of being one of the many who die from skin cancer each year. Pretty effective still leaves dead bodies.
Quite right. I see just fine in the same light as pretty effective. Sure, if your life span is a few days or weeks, those cellular repair mechanisms are just fine. You’ll live long enough to reproduce. That’s what an evolved resistance gets you.
I suppose I see the approach as impractical. It smacks of saying that underground facilities and radiation suites are too complex. Let’s cure cancer instead because we think that’s easier. It feels like an overly complex and possibly futile approach to solving an already solved problem. That’s just me though.
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That’s just not how it works.The primary way UV light kills microorganisms is by jamming the zipper of DNA to prevent reproduction. The life span of a bacterium is really short, and it’s only method of survival is rapid reproduction. Stop reproduction and you’ve effectively killed that bacterium, even if it carries on.
Nailed it on this part. Why dive into genetic engineering when regular engineering would do a better job, anyway?
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That’s not nearly enough carbon.
I kind of imagine the first few waves of Terrans will be like slow-mo Chernobyl fixers, willing to die from radiation and what-not for the greater good. I’d sign up if I were younger.
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The 24 teratonnes of CO2 in the Martian atmosphere include about 6.5 teratonnes of carbon. A typical American annual CO2 footprint is about 20 tonnes. Not enough?
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Shouldn’t it be the other way around, be willing to die when we are older and have already accomplished other goals? I expect that the first Mars colonists would be past their prime reproductive age.
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ce n’est pas un rêve
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Once upon a time I fantasized about taking one for the team as a Martian epidemiologist. But I am pretty sure we’d have to be into second century Kim Stanley Robinson before I would go now. 
Loves me some planet Earth.
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