The bioethics of biomodification for the future of space exploration: Evaluating insights from feminist and non-feminist approaches

This article analyzes the bioethical challenges raised by applying human enhancement to future space missions. We first outline mission-specific justifications for bioenhancement –framed within a utilitarian approach tailored to space policy – while rejecting the view that the space environment is morally discontinuous from Earth. We argue instead that moral evaluation should be continuous across environments, even if operational constraints differ. Our central claim is a conditional defense of bioenhancement: under clearly specified mission profiles, expected welfare gains can outweigh risks, provided stringent safeguards are in place. The strength of this justification varies with mission type (exploration, long-duration settlement, in-situ resource utilization, and reproduction in space). We identify uneven risk burdens for particular groups, especially women, people with disabilities, and private-sector spaceworkers, and specify where risk-transfer and consent problems are most acute. We also introduce a feminist lens that both broadens the problem space and surfaces concerns neglected in mainstream space ethics and bioethics (e.g., labor exploitation, reproductive justice, and design biases). While this lens substantially improves risk detection and governance design, we show that a fully comprehensive feminist framework may resist endorsing space expansion under non-ideal social conditions. The paper concludes by mapping policy levers that can reconcile a mission-sensitive utilitarian rationale for enhancement with feminist requirements of fairness and non-domination.