Right now, the JohnGlenns are beautiful, super human, super smart, super enduring, and we love to watch them do miraculous stuff as no way in hell am I sitting on top of a bomb that can blow every molecule of me to Mars in milliseconds if anything goes wrong. They're willing to do the stuff that's so ridiculously dangerous than even complete lunatics won't do it but they will and we love to watch.
Sometimes people get all tragic when one explodes but don't give me that rot, you knew that was a risk for them and for you and it was the same with every launch. They've got the major balls to sit on top of it and take that risk because it's the only way they can do it. They don't need an audience but rather they tolerate one as the only thing they really want is to be back 'out there.'
These people are the bona fide super geniuses as you need a 140 IQ just to wash the tires on the vehicles they ride. They can do twelve things at once and in times of stress they stay as cool as someone waxing a bowling ball.
These people are phenotypically different insofar as they demonstrate capabilities well beyond the norm but they are not, identifiably, different in the genotype (i.e. they are still genetically humans).
However the space program is still taking baby steps and being away from Earth for a year is an incredibly long time. That won't last so long as they already seek future astronauts who will leave Earth and never come back.
That's when the question of human speciation comes as creation of a separate gene pool results in different organisms just about every time. This is compounded by the likely higher exposure to cosmic rays and this will give a real-life validation as to what they may contribute to mutation. If mutation is, in fact, the driving force beyond evolution then it seems not just likely but inevitable that there will one day be Homo sapiens galacticus.
The not so beauty part is H. sapiens galacticus will have a tough time with feeling any equality or even brotherhood with his Earthbound compatriots.
The space program is one of the most subtle examples of eugenics you will ever see as the people they send out first will have substantially stronger characteristics than the rest of us and they will only mate with people who have similar capabilities and strengths. There's no secret of this as NASA wants the best because only the best can survive what they do.
You see something of a foretelling in "Gattaca" and that's a contorted example but generally consistent with the idea of speciation in which one sub-species of humanity really is or believes itself to be superior. This doesn't have any bearing on color, country of origin, or anything of that nature as the only interest in those selected for space is that they are the best of the best, smartest, strongest, healthiest, etc, etc.
People sometimes think of space travel in terms of reducing population, sending humanity to the stars, and all sorts of stoner rubbish which cannot possibly happen. We will make Star Children but (sob) we can't be the Star Children. There's no possible way you could make a big enough spacecraft or enough of them to lift everyone off Earth. It's only the Star Children who will go and we will watch. For me it will be cool as I will wish I were with them but I will wish them well in their travels. Live the dream.
There's no way I can know this personally but it seems it must be a bittersweet sensation to see the kids doing something you would rather be doing yourself and, even worse, doing it better than you would have done. I saw this in my family with skiing but that was funny. It was the same with my ol' Dad but the idea wasn't going to come of saying, hey, that's some whacked stuff that (fill-in-the-name) can whoop you now racing twins. (I don't know who did or who didn't but I do know it happened and what an extraordinary sensation for all of them)
Sometimes people get all tragic when one explodes but don't give me that rot, you knew that was a risk for them and for you and it was the same with every launch. They've got the major balls to sit on top of it and take that risk because it's the only way they can do it. They don't need an audience but rather they tolerate one as the only thing they really want is to be back 'out there.'
These people are the bona fide super geniuses as you need a 140 IQ just to wash the tires on the vehicles they ride. They can do twelve things at once and in times of stress they stay as cool as someone waxing a bowling ball.
These people are phenotypically different insofar as they demonstrate capabilities well beyond the norm but they are not, identifiably, different in the genotype (i.e. they are still genetically humans).
However the space program is still taking baby steps and being away from Earth for a year is an incredibly long time. That won't last so long as they already seek future astronauts who will leave Earth and never come back.
That's when the question of human speciation comes as creation of a separate gene pool results in different organisms just about every time. This is compounded by the likely higher exposure to cosmic rays and this will give a real-life validation as to what they may contribute to mutation. If mutation is, in fact, the driving force beyond evolution then it seems not just likely but inevitable that there will one day be Homo sapiens galacticus.
The not so beauty part is H. sapiens galacticus will have a tough time with feeling any equality or even brotherhood with his Earthbound compatriots.
The space program is one of the most subtle examples of eugenics you will ever see as the people they send out first will have substantially stronger characteristics than the rest of us and they will only mate with people who have similar capabilities and strengths. There's no secret of this as NASA wants the best because only the best can survive what they do.
You see something of a foretelling in "Gattaca" and that's a contorted example but generally consistent with the idea of speciation in which one sub-species of humanity really is or believes itself to be superior. This doesn't have any bearing on color, country of origin, or anything of that nature as the only interest in those selected for space is that they are the best of the best, smartest, strongest, healthiest, etc, etc.
People sometimes think of space travel in terms of reducing population, sending humanity to the stars, and all sorts of stoner rubbish which cannot possibly happen. We will make Star Children but (sob) we can't be the Star Children. There's no possible way you could make a big enough spacecraft or enough of them to lift everyone off Earth. It's only the Star Children who will go and we will watch. For me it will be cool as I will wish I were with them but I will wish them well in their travels. Live the dream.
There's no way I can know this personally but it seems it must be a bittersweet sensation to see the kids doing something you would rather be doing yourself and, even worse, doing it better than you would have done. I saw this in my family with skiing but that was funny. It was the same with my ol' Dad but the idea wasn't going to come of saying, hey, that's some whacked stuff that (fill-in-the-name) can whoop you now racing twins. (I don't know who did or who didn't but I do know it happened and what an extraordinary sensation for all of them)
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