The idea is just science fiction for now. Provided we develop good enough terraforming technologies and we have enough incentive, I suppose it's possible in the long term. The novel could be interesting - but what's interesting to me about it is not necessarily the technology but what your human-droid goes through mentally. We can assume his consciousness consents to the original mission, but what if he struggles emotionally, or decides that eventually he doesn't want to do this mission after all? Etc. William Gibson's most recent novel has an AI character based on more contemporary ideas for the use of AI/consciousness uploading technologies, and I'm sure there are many other sci-fi authors exploring the idea.