Human Enhancement from the Overview Effect in Long-Duration Space Flights

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to review the potential metabolic, neurotransmitter, and morphological changes that may occur in the human central nervous system (CNS) during long-duration habitation of Earth’s Moon. When there are either permanent space habitats or long-duration interplanetary missions, we must determine if there will be any detrimental reversible or irreversible effects on the brain from this prolonged exposure to, for example, the lunar environment. Like space, it has many troublesome characteristics, including electromagnetic fields, radiation, and one-sixth gravity, which may have effects on the function and morphology of the CNS. The potential for changes in a lunar environment can, to an extent, already be anticipated from research on microgravity, including alterations in the neurovestibular system, cephalic fluid shifts, loss of total body fluid, changes in electrolyte concentrations, decreases in muscular and skeletal mass, alterations in sensory perception, changes in proprioception, and changes in human behavior. Important issues are at stake, including human health and adaptation to a lunar environment for work, recreation, and eventually, the construction of permanent human communities.

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives…There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

—Carl Sagan