A recent article in The Conversation discusses the likely need to gene-edit human beings to fit them for colonising other worlds. Just the sort of thing explored in The Titan Kiss, which runs up hard against the unavoidable social and moral issues.

One preposterous idea in the recent article is to bioengineer a human/tardigrade chimera, to benefit from the latter’s ability to withstand extreme environments. Would such a laboratory product – or, more to the point, its progeny – ever be accepted as human (as in: “human rights”)?