Genetic engineering program proposed to NASA scientists and engineers

Genetic Engineering Could Be Used to Manufacture Future Space Travelers For NASA.

From DATELINE ZERO – NASA’s human spaceflight program will take some giant leaps forward if the agency embraces genetic engineering techniques more fully, according to genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter. NASA scientists and engineers are considering Venter’s claims with a great deal of interest.

If Venter’s proposals are put into practice, the United States Government would be directly involved in genetic engineering humans for employment in government programs.

The biologist, who established the J. Craig Venter Institute that created the world’s first synthetic organism earlier this year proposed that human space exploration programs implement better genetic screening and formal genetic engineering.The end goal would be the creation of genetically modified humans intended to serve the U.S. Government’s space agency, NASA.

Speaking on Saturday, October 30, to a group of scientists and engineers at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Venter made this proposal during two different meetings: a synthetic biology workshop put on by NASA, and Space Manufacturing 14: Critical Technologies for Space Settlement, organized by the nonprofit Space Studies Institute.

Venter is encouraging NASA to consider a program involving genetic modification of humans, saying that such a program would easily compliment existing NASA programs and give those existing programs added value. “NASA’s been doing genetic selection for a long time,” he said. “You just don’t call it that.”

The path to super-human space explorers is simple, according to Venter. Here is the proposal he made the crowd of interested NASA engineers and scientists on Oct 30… Read the full article at Dateline Zero.