LONDON: Britain’s Astronomer Royal Martin Rees has said that robots should be sent into space rather than people. Martin Rees said that robots could do this job in a batter way.
Martin Rees expressed doubts regarding the idea of a human space flight being valuable. Martin Rees added that robots can do the things that people were needed for around 50 years ago, the case for sending human is getting weaker all the time.
Astronomer Royal is now an honorary title and was set up by King Charles II in 1675 to advise the ruler and has previously been held by some of Britain’s most famous scientists.
Rees was of the view that space travel should only be for those ready to accept a “very high level of risk”, and it must be paid for privately rather than by the taxpayers. The UK’s space programmes have usually focused on space research instead of crewed missions.
Rees, who was selected Astronomer Royal in 1995, stated that he didn’t agree with Elon Musk’s ambition to colonise Mars, but he lauded his works in both rockets and electric cars.
He said that Elon Musk did a much better job than the big conglomerates that used to work for NASA in producing effective rockets, which can be recycled, and that will make it inexpensive to actually send stuff into space.
