Astrobiology – from science fiction towards multidisciplinary science helping to shape and improve our future

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?