How to handle transhumanism vs space colonization

Given the difficulties in doing things like constructing O'Neil cylinders or habitats on places like Mars, is it at all plausible that current humans could ever really colonize anything in space? Is it more plausible that we're all cyborgs by the time we could reasonably get there, or that AIs/robots are the ones doing nearly all of the actual exploration?

What could prevent this from being the case? How can we keep more or less regular people relevant in future space travel?

EDIT: I feel like this is especially a problem in terms of the type of life support that you would need for extremely long term settlements like O'Neil Cylinders that people will live in over the long term. You'd need biotech advancements to create the sort of closed cycle life support, which would also logically allow things like genetic engineering and other types of augmentation to move forwards more easily at the same time.

posted almost 4 years ago

Adam Reynolds‭

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