conuly

Funny you should mention. At the convention this weekend, I went to a panel about the medical considerations of the planned Martian colony. One of which is that they're gonna have to grow all their own drugs, because shipping them something from Earth is not at all a timely way of getting a livesaving supply. So the plan (okay, somebody's plan -- I came in late and am unsure which Martian colonization plan we were discussing) involved using synthesizing all their own drugs. (This for a colony of 12 pp.) Some handwaving was involved.

I gather the notion is lots of little bacteriological farms churning out whatever modern medicines they need.

(Personally, I think they haven't really thought this through all the way, and said as much.)