Future of space: Could robots really replace human astronauts?

The Chinese space agency, meanwhile, also wants to send astronauts to the Moon.

Elsewhere Elon Musk, CEO of the US company SpaceX, has his own plans related to space. He has said that his long-term plan is to create a colony on Mars, where humans could land, external.

His idea is to use Starship, a vast new vehicle that his company is developing, to transport up to 100 people there at a time, with the aim for there to be a million people on Mars in 20 years, external.

“Musk is arguing we need to move to Mars because that could be a backup for humanity if something catastrophic happens on Earth,” explains Dr Weinersmith. “If you buy that argument, then sending humans into space is necessary.”

However, there are large unknowns about living on Mars, including myriad technical challenges that she says remain unsolved.

“Maybe babies can’t develop in that environment,” she says. “There [are] ethical questions [like this] that we don’t have the answers to.

“I think we should be slowing down.”

Lord Rees has a vision of his own, though, in which human and robotic exploration might merge to the point that humans themselves are part-machine to cope with extreme environments. “I can imagine they will use all of the techniques of genetic modification, cyborg add-ons, and so on, to cope with very hostile environments,” he says.

“We may have a new species that will be happy to live on Mars.”

Until then, however, humans are likely to continue their small steps into the cosmos, on a path long trodden by robotic explorers before them.

Top image credit: NASA