To me, it feels like a further step in advancing human civilization. Disperse the population a bit and keep growing as a species. That said, I’m no expert and if you have literature to recommend please do!
To me, it feels like a further step in advancing human civilization. Disperse the population a bit and keep growing as a species. That said, I’m no expert and if you have literature to recommend please do!
Yes and no. I don’t really see how robots in space is usually an end goal. Sure, we need satellites, probes, telescopes like we already do.
But mining is a great example where there’s no point . Of course robots can do it cheaper than humans but there are extremely few, if any, resources valuable enough to be worth mining in space and bringing back. Maybe helium-3 if we ever get fusion working.
Where it is worth machines mining in space is to support human space activities. Being able to, for example, build habitats or at least radiation shielding from simple local rock saves huge amounts over bringing that weight from earth. The reason people are excited about craters near the South Pole of the moon is the prospect mining water, oxygen, even rocket fuel for use to make human space activities radically cheaper. At that point you’ve drastically cut the weight of things needing to be lifted from earth, radically cut costs, while making life in space generally safer and easier.