Startup Innovate In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) Device for Space Born Baby Conception
Elon Musk, and other important people in the space industry dream of a time when Mars can be a place where thousands of people live happily. To make this happen, they need to create a community on Mars that can take care of itself.
Sending people from Earth to Mars all the time is not practical. So, they need to figure out how people can have babies in space, which is a big challenge with many parts to it.
First, scientists need to figure out if it’s even possible for people to have babies in space. Space has a lot of problems like radiation that can hurt people, no gravity to help with things, and not enough of the things we need to live.
A Dutch startup called SpaceBorn United is now working on this big job. They want to research and make it possible for people to have babies in space so that we can have communities beyond Earth.
A series of Upcoming experiments
Recently this company has made a small machine for making babies outside of the body, called in-vitro fertilization (IVF), and a special box to keep the baby safe while it grows in space.
The company, SpaceBorn United, created a small model of this machine that’s about the size of a CD-ROM. It uses a special technology to help make babies, and it spins around to act like there’s gravity, just like on Earth.
They plan to start by doing tests with tiny animal cells and then move on to human cells in space. These tests are meant to figure out how to make babies in space.
Egbert Edelbroek, who runs SpaceBorn United, told that it’s really important to figure out how to make babies in space if we want to have big groups of people living on places like Mars.
Initial Experiments Conducted in Space Involving Mouse Cells
To work towards this goal, the company has been getting ready for a set of experiments in space called the ARTIS mission, which is short for Assisted Reproductive Technology in Space.
These missions are planned to happen over the next five years, and they will start with tests on mouse cells. In these mouse tests, they’ll put embryos in a real womb, and the rest of the pregnancy and birth will happen on Earth.
If these missions go as they hope, they might do more tests using human stem cells.
The company’s website gives more details about the ARTIS missions. It says that during these missions, they will fertilize female reproductive cells in space and let embryos develop as if there’s gravity like on Earth. After about 5–6 days, they will freeze the embryos and send them back to Earth to study.
The point of these experiments is to figure out how much gravity is needed for embryos to grow healthy, as the website explains.
Achieving This Objective Would Require Several Years
However, even if they get permission from the government to do a lot of research, it will still take many, many years before they can make babies in space. It’s important to know that doing experiments with human babies before they’re born is a big deal, and there are rules saying you can only grow them for up to 14 days.
Making babies in space has many hard problems and dangers that need a lot of research and planning.
Also, if we want to build communities in space, we’ll need to have really good systems to keep pregnant women and babies safe.
To try to make this happen, they’ll probably need to do a lot of tests with doctors, pretend experiments, and think carefully about what might happen.
Conclusion
People like Elon Musk have big dreams for lots of people living on Mars. But sending people there all the time is hard, so they’re trying to figure out how to make babies in space. A Dutch startup called SpaceBorn United is working on it.
They made a small machine that can help make babies in space. They’re going to do tests with tiny animal cells first and then maybe with human cells. It’s a big job that will take many years, but it’s important if we want to have people living on Mars and other places in space safely.
Originally published at https://businessdor.com on September 9, 2023.