Transhumanism and cosmic travel

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article introduces transhumanism into the study of space travel and tourism. Transhumanism advocates the enhancement of the human body to affect a technological evolution of humans towards a new, advanced species – the posthuman. In contrast to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and most visionary space entrepreneurs, transhumanists envision that human enhancement is a precondition for travel and expansion into the cosmos. We distinguish two versions of transhumanism: a moderate one, which seeks to overcome human biological limitations and enhance human capacities, and an extreme one, which seeks to dispense of the body by transferring, or uploading, the human mind from the biological brain to a computer. We claim that, if such operations prove feasible, the moderate version will facilitate travel within the solar system, and the extreme version might constitute a precondition to Galactic travel and expansion. ‘Unmodified’ tourists may thus be deemed comparatively unfit for space travel, particularly to far away destinations. While government space agencies and the private spaceflight industry continue to refer to the ‘opening’ of outer space to everyone, transhumanist ideas indicate that this democratisation of space tourism might not occur.