[javajosh]

In the interest of brevity I left out the post-humanist angle. You're right: we can work on the problem from the other angle of making our form more survivable. Various post-humanist ideas, from genetic engineering to uploading mind state into a (presumably more survivable) computational substrate are options. There is a reasonable argument to be made that our time would be better spent achieving these forms before attempting serious colonization. However, I suspect that "meat puppet" colonization is easier than we think, especially if we accept the OP's argument that we need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot with unreasonable safety requirements.