CRISPR Challenges and Opportunities for Space Travel

CRISPR gene technology has been scientifically exciting because of its great potential to alter any DNA. There are scientific risks with CRISPR gene editing, but risk assessment is not impossible and is currently in progress. Space travel presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities for CRISPR gene editing. Biomedically, space travel is a major health hazard for astronauts. Research on the genetic and molecular mechanisms behind these biomedical challenges presents opportunities for CRISPR to serve as a biomedical intervention for astronauts. This article gives several examples where such mechanisms have been reported. However, the guidelines regarding CRISPR applications are still very generic and difficult to implement in specific cases. The focus of this paper is on the therapy/enhancement distinction, which many guidelines mention, to help us discern when CRISPR applications are justifiable. I propose a reworking of the definition of normal in order to be able to distinguish therapy from enhancement, where the former is deemed more appropriate for CRISPR applications than the latter. Space travel is a unique and interesting scenario to test the applications of the therapy/enhancement distinction as guidelines for CRISPR gene editing.