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THIS year marked the 50th anniversary of the most iconic moment of the space race: Neil Armstrong鈥檚 鈥�small step鈥� onto the moon on 21 July 1969.

Many of us who viewed those grainy TV images live expected it to be just a beginning, and that there would have been footprints on Mars long before now. But the heroics of the Apollo missions are ancient history to young people today. After the US had beaten the Soviet Union to the moon, there was no call to sustain the huge outlay on the space race, which at its peak consumed 4 per cent of the US federal budget. Since 1972, no one has got beyond the International Space Station鈥檚 orbit, just 400 kilometres up.

Yet a half century on, the next instalment of the space race is beginning. China, which landed the first probe on the lunar far side in January this year, plans to send people to the moon. India, which sent a rocket there this year, dreams of doing likewise. The Trump administration in the US proposes creating a lunar base as a step towards sending humans to Mars. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are developing rockets to take people to deep space through their ventures SpaceX and Blue Origin.

If any of these plans come off, the 2020s could be when Apollo鈥檚 promise is finally fulfilled, and humanity establishes its first permanent presence beyond Earth orbit. That raises wider questions about the motives and goals of space exploration 鈥� and what the ultimate destiny of our species might be, here on Earth and perhaps far beyond.

Space exploration never really went away, of course. We routinely use satellites for communication, navigation and environmental monitoring. Rovers have been sent to the surface of Mars, while the European Space Agency鈥檚 Rosetta mission put a lander on a comet. NASA鈥檚 Cassini probe spent 13 years exploring Saturn and its moons. NASA鈥檚 New Horizons mission gave us our first glimpse of Pluto, having travelled 13,000 times the distance to the moon.

鈥淭he next decade could be when Apollo鈥檚 promise is fulfilled and we establish a presence beyond Earth鈥�

These craft were designed and built in the 1990s. The Hubble Space Telescope, which has revolutionised our knowledge of the cosmos, dates back further. Advances in microelectronics, computing, communication and robotics have accelerated in the past 20 years, so there is now huge scope for more sophisticated craft. The James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble鈥檚 successor, will be surveying the universe from far beyond the moon by mid-decade. Further ahead, we can expect flotillas of miniaturised robotic probes to swarm through our solar system, communicating with each other like a flock of birds.

How soon such projects are implemented will depend on the motivation and incentives. Apart from national prestige, the main reason for deep space exploration so far has been scientific discovery. Future space exploits are likely to have a more commercial bent. Robotic fabricators will be able to assemble vast lightweight structures in space, such as mirrors for huge telescopes, or solar-energy collectors. Rather than being lifted from Earth, the materials could be mined from the moon or from asteroids. Some people believe we could recover precious metals from asteroids and bring them back to Earth.

There are clear ethical and regulatory questions to be asked about what the boundaries of such activities should be. On a small scale, they may be acceptable. But it has been proposed, for example by the former Apollo astronaut and US senator Harrison Schmitt, that the helium-3 isotope, a fuel for futuristic fusion reactors thought to be abundant on the moon, could be recovered by large-scale strip mining there.

In 2015, the US Congress passed legislation informally known as the SPACE Act, which promotes the right of US citizens (and by extension corporations) to engage in the 鈥渃ommercial recovery of space resources free from harmful interference鈥� subject to authorization and continuing supervision by the Federal Government鈥�. Such supervision may not be enough. Earth鈥檚 nations together preserve the Antarctic; the case for global regulation of efforts to alter the landscape of other celestial objects in a commercially motivated space era becomes ever greater.

These issues will become more acute if humans venture not just back to the moon, but onwards to Mars. Just how likely is this really? Continuing advances will erode the practical case for crewed space flight. There will soon be few tasks for humans in space that robots can鈥檛 do better. Today, a trained geologist on Mars could achieve far more than NASA鈥檚 Curiosity rover, which has been trundling for a decade across a giant Martian crater. But future geological investigations of other worlds lie with rovers elaborately equipped with sensors, tools and a memory superior to that of any human.

Given the risks inherent in space flight, we might think humanity is better off directing affairs from the ground. Yet I hope that some humans will follow the robots 鈥� if only to inspire a new generation, as the first moon landings did 50 years ago.

But we need to be honest about the risks. NASA鈥檚 Space Shuttle, which first launched in 1981, was unwisely promoted by some as 鈥渟afe鈥�. It failed catastrophically twice in 135 missions 鈥� a level of risk that some thrill seekers would willingly accept 鈥� but unrealistic expectations meant that each failure was a national trauma, and led to costly delays and increased risk aversion.

鈥淟eaving our planet may be the first step towards a new species that will evolve faster than ever鈥�

Private ventures such as SpaceX and Blue Origin can tolerate higher risks than governments can impose on publicly funded astronauts. It is they who can and should front future crewed missions. But these missions should be sold honestly. That means not as 鈥渟pace tourism鈥�, with its connotations of a routine, low-risk activity, nor as serious scientific activity, but as dangerous sport or intrepid exploration that panders to the human desire to fly higher and further.

Some will be content with one-way tickets. Musk himself says he wants to die on Mars, just not on impact. Such risk takers may well establish bases independent from Earth. But don鈥檛 expect mass emigration. Here I disagree with Musk, and with my late colleague Stephen Hawking, who often said that humanity must seek its future in space to avoid inevitable disaster on Earth.

It is a dangerous delusion to think that space offers an escape from Earth鈥檚 problems. We must solve them here. Coping with climate change is a doddle compared with terraforming Mars; there is no environment in our solar system as clement as even the Antarctic or Everest鈥檚 summit. There is no 鈥淧lanet B鈥� for ordinary risk-averse people.

But those few who do dare leave Earth will surely be starting a new, very different future for humanity. They will find themselves ill-adapted to conditions there, so will have a more compelling incentive than those of us on Earth to redesign themselves using powerful genetic-engineering and cybernetic technologies. These techniques will, I hope, be restrained on Earth, on prudential and ethical grounds; but those on Mars will be freer to experiment.

We should surely wish them luck in modifying their progeny to adapt to alien worlds. This may be the first step towards divergence into a new species 鈥� an evolution via 鈥渟ecular intelligent design鈥� that proceeds on timescales of technological advance, perhaps thousands of times faster than Darwinian selection.

If these post-humans one day make the transition from flesh and blood to fully inorganic intelligences, they won鈥檛 need an atmosphere. And they may prefer zero-gravity environments, especially for constructing massive artefacts. So it is in deep space, not on Earth, nor even on Mars, that non-biological 鈥渂rains鈥� may develop powers that humans can鈥檛 even imagine. Earth, we can surmise, would no longer seem an alluring environment to them, a reassuring thought, as they would be likely to leave our descendants undisturbed.

Humanity is an outcome of 4 billion years of Darwinian evolution. Our sun will survive 6 billion more years before its fuel runs out. The universe will continue far longer still. So even if intelligent life originated only on Earth, it needn鈥檛 remain a trivial feature of the cosmos: the next stage of the space race could ultimately spark a diaspora whereby ever more complex intelligence spreads through the galaxy, perhaps via self-reproducing machines or suchlike. Interstellar voyages would hold no terrors for such near-immortals. There鈥檚 plenty of time ahead.