In 1960 Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline coined the term cyborg to refer to (nothing less than) an ‘exogenously extended organisational complex functioning as an integrated homeostatic system unconsciously’ (Clynes and Kline 1995 [1960]: 30–1). In so doing, they simultaneously heralded at least four decades of speculation on the post-human, and sought to close down this potentiality to effectuate a homeostaticrepetition of Homo sapiens. The exogenous extension of which Clynes and Kline spoke was the technological extension of a biological organism to enable its continued survival in the hostile environ of space. Whilst their first experiments involved the ubiquitous lab-rat, Clynes and Kline's ultimate goal was the merging of high technology and a human body to produce the ultimate astronaut. Whilst apparently radical, insofar as it broached the boundaries of the human body and took technics out of humans’ conscious control, at its core Clynes and Kline's work was conservative.