Long space flights will make you short, fat, and bald

Technological progress always comes with a hefty price. (Unless it's a PC, I suppose)

So I must admit to feeling a little heartskip at hearing that the search to commune with aliens in the outer beyond will leave humans looking like, well, porky aliens.

According to a report in the Telegraph, scientists believe that long flights into space will not have beautifying effects on the star-crossed trekkers of the future.

In fact, they will make them short, fat, and bald.

I wish I could find more comforting words to describe their fate. Just as I wish that more people would realize that "bald" does not equate to "ugly."

A long time spent up in near zero gravity will mean that humans will not have to make an effort to get off the couch. They won't have to do anything to stay warm either. And no exercise means, well, blubber.

Will these be trekking humans waiting for plastic surgery?

(Credit: CC Jurvetson/Flickr)

The otherworldly atmosphere will also mean that humans won't exactly grow, as muscles and bones will not develop in the way they do here in the gyms of the earth.

Astrobiologist Dr. Lewis Dartnell from University College, London, also said that fluid will pool in humans' skulls and there will be no need for protecting yourself from the cold. Which means your face will bloat and your hair will fall out. Oh, and don't forget that you'll be fat, too.

"With little effort required to move around in microgravity and an environment that is never too hot or cold, future spacemen and women are likely to become pretty chubby," he said.

But here is what Dr. Dartnell did not conceive.

On every future long-haul space flight there will be plastic surgeons ready to nip, tuck, and weave you back to beauty in a perfectly painless, weightless environment. Jowls too puffy? Let's pop that air out. Hair dropping out? Let's graft a little from your other regions.

Yes, it will be not unlike the masseuses on the original Virgin Atlantic Airways.

We must never think negatively about technological progress. Science will always find a way to keep us just as beautiful as we are today. I mean, what else do we need science for?

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