As we too often forget, the marvels of science used in science-fiction stories are not limited to the domains of physics or technology, but also include products of life science. As an example, imagine mankind has finally located the ready-to-colonize, Earth-like planet it has always dreamed of. This planet is orbiting a nice little star, a bunch of light years away from our blue planet. The interstellar ship is ready, but there is just one little problem. As faster-than-light travel is not available in this not so hypothetical universe, the trip will take between fifty and one hundred years. The members of the crew will be more than eighty when they reach their destination. Life science can easily solve this first problem by giving human beings a longer life expectancy.

However, even a science-fiction writer would not dare to imagine that the small crew would remain sane after spending a century crammed into a space ship cruising in the middle of nowhere. Once more, life science comes to the rescue. As in the novels "2001: A Space Odyssey" (Arthur C. Clarke) or "The Legacy of Heorot" (Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes), the crew can be put into hibernation or frozen sleep until they reach their destination. In addition to the crew, the frozen cargo of the ship will also include all the plants and animals (embryos) that will be necessary for these new settlers to set up their colony.

Genetic engineering is also a key life-science technique in many science-fiction stories dealing with the exploration and colonization of planets. Most of the time, planets will not be fit for human life. Making them habitable (terraforming them) will be a huge task, and genetically engineered organisms and plants can be key players in the process (see "Le rêve des forêts" by Gérard Klein or "Venus of Dreams" and "Venus of Shadows" by Pamela Sargent). If terraforming is not possible or cannot be afforded, why not use genetic engineering to make human beings fit to live on the planet instead? In the novel "The Seedling Stars" by James Blish, a new species of human beings is created using a mix of genetic engineering and quite mysterious techniques called "pantropy". These "adapted men" are completely transformed to be able to live on Ganymede, the icy satellite of Jupiter: their blood is made of liquid ammonia, their bones of ice IV, and their breathing cycle is based on the chemistry of sulphur! One danger of such a radical transformation is that the adapted men could be so different that they are no longer human. In the novel "City" by Clifford D. Simak, they become so different that they give up communicating with the good old human species.

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