Why human colonisers could become cyborgs to survive on Mars

While the idea of living on Mars may sound like the plot of the latest science fiction blockbuster, firms including NASA and SpaceX are seriously considering it as a possibility. Several challenges currently stand in our way, including building a self-sufficient spacecraft that can take crew safely, and finding a way to shield astronauts from dangerous solar and cosmic radiation - not to mention enabling them to live in microgravity on a planet with no atmosphere. This week, Lord Martin Rees, one of the country's leading astronomers, claimed that the obvious solution to some of these problems is making future explorers part-cyborg. Lord Rees told the Hay Festival: 'These intrepid explorers on Mars will be out of the clutches of the regulators and they will have every incentive to modify themselves because they are very badly adapted for Mars. 'They will use all these techniques to adapt themselves.