What robots cannot do well is be flexible in their mission. This is something that humans excel.
What robots cannot do well is be flexible in their mission. This is something that humans excel.
Also I think the psychological effects of having actual humans doing this stuff on the people staying back home should not be underestimated. Would we have an Elon Musk today[0] hadn't we landed Neil Armstrong on the moon in 1969?
[0]Or at least SpaceX, this guy's endeavours are all over the place :D
For any given fixed distance (e.g. mars) at some point there's a crossover where sending some people up there to go kick rocks is actually cheaper than sending a series of robots that kick rocks in progressively more detail. I'm not sure if we've reached that technology point yet but as space flight gets cheaper and cheaper it will eventually happen for the moon and then for mars.