Abstract:
Since the days of the early science fiction novels by Jules Verne, travels to space have now become
an obvious reality. What is more astonishing is how life sciences have obtained a crucial role in
today´s space exploration. In the early days of the modern space age, it was assumed that the
universe was detrimental to all life forms on Earth. However, with the discovery of extremophilic life
forms on Earth and the various biological experiments on the international space station (ISS), our
understanding of the limits (or rather potential) of life and the concepts of “death” have expanded
significantly. Today, there are extensive plans for human missions and colonization in space – but
how far can we go – what are the ethical concerns around this?
