On 01/11/2011 12:04, TheBeerjunkie wrote:
Hello there,

I'm a student and I'm in my final year and I wish to do my essay about
space colonization.
My first topic is about the planets or planetary bodies that are not
suitable for this purpose. Such as planets or planetary bodies outside
of our solar system. As I understand it it is simply to far to get
within a lifetime, so that sugests we would have to have babies in order
to do that. But due to cosmic radiation, this presents a large amount of
difficulties. Sperm decrease, damage to egg cells etc.
Even though there are ways to protect ourselves from this radiation, it
is not enaugh to allow us to have babies in space. Even if a baby could
make it out of the womb we would still have problems protecting it from
this cosmic radiation. This and the lack of gravity make it impossible

The trick for gravity was demonstrated in 2001 a space odyssey. The zone
you want to have effective gravity needs to be on the inner surface of a
rotating cylinder - with or without velcro shoes and flooring. It would
work but might take some getting used to.

to do so in space. But imagine, if we were able to create an atmosphere
on Mars or on any other planet, would THAT allow us to have children?
Since the atmosphere should filter a part of this radiation?

You should look up terraforming. Mars might benefit from the addition of
powerful greenhouse gasses like SF6, CF4 or C2F6 to its atmosphere. All
of these would be gasses for part of the time and stable and heavy
enough to find escaping from the planets weaker gravity difficult.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown