Parece que você lembrou um pouco do título. Eu acho que você está descrevendo " Man Plus " por Frederik Pohl. É a história de um astronauta que sofre modificações corporais para poder viver em Marte. Ele era originalmente o astronauta de backup e realmente não queria fazer isso.
The first Earthling reworked into a Martian would be Roger Torraway. Martian instead of Earthling since everything on him had to be reworked in order to survive on Mars. His organic skin is stripped off and made plastic. His eyes are replaced by large, buglike red ones. He is given wings to gather solar power, not to fly. All of which is organized and run by his friend, the computer on his back. Who was this man? What was his life like? How did he survive the transformation to become more than human and help us successfully colonize Mars?