Cyborgs and Space (1960)

This paper appears to be the first use of the term cyborg. They propose that modifying an organism (cybernetically -- cyborg = cybernetic organism) to live in a new environment is more efficient than modifying the environment (space, or other worlds).

> Solving the many technological problems involved in manned space flight by adapting man to his environment, rather than vice versa, will not only mark a significant step forward in man's scientific progress, but may well provide a new and larger dimension for man's spirit as well.

This is one of my favorite N-Grams using Google's NGram Viewer: artificial intelligence,machine learning,cybernetics,complex systems; 1800-2008

Complex systems is quite surprising, and reaches back the furthest of the four. I'm not drawing any conclusions nor expressing any ideological opinions. I simply like the symmetries--cybernetics spikes, and AI spikes similarly and with a greater magnitude. Complex systems and machine learning just move steady upward.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=artificial+int...

Discussed recently here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22284926

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22447673

See also pantropy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantropy

Small typo in title: "ans" -> "and"

The paper itself is linked here: http://web.mit.edu/digitalapollo/Documents/Chapter1/cyborgs....

First sentence I see:

" You remember the editorial in issue 9 of the newsletter on why adapt space to humans where can adapt humans to space "

Am I having a stroke?