Leave space missions to billionaires and robots, says astronomer royal

The world's space agencies should scrap plans to send astronauts to the moon and Mars and leave them to explorers and billionaires who can privately fund and risk such adventures, the astronomer royal says. Lord Martin Rees said technical improvements and more sophisticated artificial intelligence meant robotic missions were becoming ever more capable of exploration, and even construction, in space, making it unnecessary for space agencies to front far-flung human missions. "We should not have publicly funded programmes to send people to the moon, still less to Mars," said Rees. "It's hugely risky, hugely expensive, and there's no practical or scientific benefit to sending humans. His comments prompted a robust defence from some experts, who stressed that government-backed spacefaring is a way to project soft power and provided huge inspiration, adding that the private sector could turn space into the "wild west". But Rees argues we should encourage and cheer on explorers and billionaire entrepreneurs who want to leave Earth in search of adventure in the spirit of Shackleton and Scott – both of whom died on Antarctic expeditions. The SpaceX founder, Elon Musk, has long enthused about moving to Mars, noting "there's a good chance of death". While human genetic modification should be heavily regulated on Earth, Rees said, Mars settlers would be free to enhance their children to cope with life on the red planet. Doing so could drive the divergence of the species, he added, raising the unsettling prospect of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs being the seed stock for a bunch of puny post-humans, given the weak Martian gravity. "They will have every incentive to try to redesign themselves and these changes are going to be rapid compared with Darwinian evolution," Rees said. "If something evolves that's rather different from present day human beings, it's likely to evolve from them, not us." Astronauts last set foot on the moon half a century ago. Since then, humans have not ventured further than a few hundred miles into space, mostly to the International Space Station. Space agencies, including from the US, Europe, China and Russia, are now on course to return to the moon. Mars is next in line. The cost is considerable because humans are fragile. The US president, Joe Biden, has requested $26bn (£20.6bn) for Nasa in 2023, with $7.5bn earmarked for the Artemis programme which aims to put the first woman and the first person of colour on the moon as early as 2025. "I think many people support the idea of science in space and assume humans are an essential part of that.