http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/05/space-radiation-may-d...
After letting the mice rest for 6 weeks, the team put them through a battery of cognitive tests, including a task that required the rodents to distinguish between familiar and novel objects, such as toys. The mice hammered by radiation were “severely compromised” on several measures compared with an unexposed control group, Limoli says. Control mice, for example, spent more time sniffing around a new item placed in their cages than investigating familiar objects—a sign that their ability to react to novelty was intact. Irradiated mice, in contrast, spent equal time exploring new and old items, suggesting their ability to learn and remember new information about their environment had been impaired.
Talk of mars colonization is riddled with myopic assumptions about something we barely understand. Focusing on those few issues we may have in hand to the exclusion of the many critical unsolved problems is troubling.