Will life forms like a human evolve to a new specie if it lives in a microgravity environment for generations.

Question

Will a human evolve into something new if it lives several hundreds of generations in a space station and floats all the time without using its legs a lot.

Assuming you could grow food on board and create water by combining hydrogen and oxygen.

Answer 1

We would need to find a way to survive and reproduce in space first. Then we would only start to evolve if those people in space planned to stay in space.

The other thing is that Humans have already taken partial control of our own evolution because we can control our immediate surroundings. We use our brains to create technology to aid us instead of relying on natural ability and natural selection to shape our skills. We continue to get bigger and stronger simply because we can generate enough food to feed enough of us to propagate the species and those that are bigger and stronger typically are guaranteed to reproduce.

I think that even in space our "evolving" would be limited because we would use our technology to enhance the things that were lacking. I would see a more cyborg type race emerging before we evolved fins or not having legs.

Answer 2

Maybe. Probably. If humans can even survive. We know that people loose bone mass every day they are weightless, and stays of more than a year or two may be fatal. There is also some evidence that embryo development cannot occur normally without gravity and the babies would either be born dead or not survive long after birth. But we just don't know that for sure yet.

Answer 3

No, because no births will occur in space due to the excessive radiation of the Van Allen Belts! If no births then no evolution can occur and besides how long do you think one space station can last up there without support from the ground?

Answer 4

For your information, we had to wait several eons for life to form on planet Earth. Even after several millions of years of evolution, we are greatly disappointed about the fact that the life forms are very primitive. For example, you Earthlings still use only 10% of your brains; you Earthlings still use only one hand to do most things; you Earthlings still have not mastered interstellar space travel as of yet.

We have given you Earthlings 25 earth years to smarten up. If your progress is unsatisfactory, we will take away your atmosphere and after you all suffocate, we will simply land and take all your minerals.

Remember this; you were warned!

Answer 5

Most likely, yes. Our bones would eventually become obsolete, yet we may develop a type of carapace or tougher outer skin to combat the constant bombardment from radiation. Our arms and legs would probably develop more of a flipper type structure to help aid in zero-g travel.
Basically, we would become more like turtles...
Turtles all the way down

Answer 6

If we could find a way to survive long enough we sure would.