Main description:

This book presents a collection of chapters, which address various contexts and challenges of the idea of human enhancement for the purposes of human space missions. The authors discuss pros and cons of mostly biological enhancement of human astronauts operating in hostile space environments, but also ethical and theological aspects are addressed. In contrast to the idea and program of human enhancement on Earth, human enhancement in space is considered a serious and necessary option. This book aims at scholars in the following fields: ethics and philosophy, space policy, public policy, as well as biologists and psychologists.

Contents:

Section I. Human Enhancements: Biological, Medical, and IT Perspectives.- Margaret Boone Rappaport and Christopher Corbally: Normalizing the Paradigm on Human Enhancements.- Martin Braddock: Challenges and Opportunities for Colonisation and Civilisation Build and the Potential for Human Enhancements.- Steven Abood: Crossing the Transhuman Rubicon: When do enhancements change our definition of human?.- Section II. Human Enhancements: Philosophical and Moral Perspectives.- Konrad Szocik and Chris Impey: Human enhancement and Mars settlement - biological necessity or science-fiction?.- Ziba Norman and Michael Reiss: Volitional Evolution: Does A Mission to Mars Alter the Balance in Favour of Enhancement?.- Koji Tachibana: Human enhancement in space and the value of survival.- Anthony Milligan: The Ethical Problems of Life Extension in Space.- Gonzalo Munevar: Science and Ethics in the Human-Enhanced Exploration of Mars.- Cameron Smith: Prediction and Prescription in Mars Settlement Studies.- Hector Velazquez: Mission to Mars: Enhancing our concept of human home?.- Klara Anna Capova: Homo extremophilaeus. Terrestrial and extra-terrestrial stories of extreme survival and their relevance for manned mission to Mars.- Laura Benitez Valero: Spatial Colonization and xenointersections.- Raquel Cascales: Cyborgs and Cyborgism: The Present Human Enhancement as a Projection of the Future.- Rosa Fernandez, Urtasun: Myths of the Future in Mars.- Jacques Arnould: Promise of heaven. Space, human enhancement, and religion.- Luis Torro Ferrero: Some theological considerations about human enhancement in the missions to the outer planets.