Cyborg astronauts will be needed to colonize outer space

Humans are built to thrive on Earth , but even a yearlong round - trip mission to Mars could place major aesculapian risks . If we want humans to colonise the solar system of rules , we may have to fundamentally change our biology and become bionic man .

That ’s the argument put forward by Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum aged curator Roger Launius , who think unmodified humans wo n’t be capable to outlive the inexorable off - world surroundings . Between cosmic radiation , low gravity stratum , and the invariant threat of running out of the most introductory resources like water or oxygen , the challenge might be too big for humankind as they are now , which enkindle the question of using tactical mechanically skillful enhancements to create cyborg colonists .

Of course , what one means by “ cyborg ” is open to some discussion . Launius considers anyone with pacemakers and cochlea spike implants to match the basic definition – which he says intend he himself is a cyborg . So somewhere between a sturdier artificial pacemaker and human mental capacity in automatic trunk lie down the right Libra for these cyborg astronauts , and Launius contend we need to start seriously investigating this topic .

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The estimate has been floating around for at least fifty years , when Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline publish “ Cyborgs and Space ” in 1960 . The newspaper challenged the prevailing – and still common today – notion that humans should assay to replicate their entire Earth surroundings as they head into blank space . Instead , they wrote , space explorers must accept the necessity of adapting themselves to the strange new environment of outer space , at least if they ’re planning on staying off from Earth for extended periods .

NASA in reality explored this possibility to some extent in the 1960s , but they abandoned it around the same time unmodified humankind Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were setting foot on the Moon . Part of the problem was that the technology did n’t yet exist for them to really act on the idea , but Launius also suspect NASA was scared off by the ethical quandaries the melodic theme nurture .

That ’s a independent part of the debate he ’s hope to kickstart :

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“ It does raise profound honorable , moral and perhaps even religious question that have n’t been gravely addressed . We have a means to go before that happens . ”

What he and other ethicist who have moot the subject have generally concluded is that there needs to be sufficient justification for modifying mass into something that is n’t alone human . The justification , as Launius sees it , is the Leslie Townes Hope of becoming a multi - planetary race , and perhaps setting the microscope stage for eventually spreading out into the stars , a end late championed by Stephen Hawking .

The opportunity to truly leave Earth behind and expand humanity beyond its evolutionary home is a tantalizing possibility , and one that seems to go some way to making the cyborgization of colonist palatable . Of course , it will then have to be left to those on Earth and in place as to whether it ’s really humanity that ’s conquering KO’d space , and whether the “ unfeigned ” human race ever left Earth at all .

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