Robotic Nation Evidence

In space this makes sense. Sending people to the moon is very expensive. Robots will always be cheaper, and often better. Robots do not care about cosmic rays or lack of oxygen.

As robots get less expensive, it makes sense for more and more occupations. Pilots, as you say. Doctors.
 

Until the robot take over. Then humans will be valued less than machines and it will be the humans being sent on one way trips to Mars.
 

It will always be more expensive to take humans, rather than machines, to space. The system complexity and size is inherently higher.

That said, currently robots are relatively brain-dead. There is very little local autonomy. The systems have such disasterous failure cases when doing anything complex, like trying to avoid a rock.

Also, humans explore space not just for utilitarians purposes. Yes, orbital PV arrays will be contructed autonomously. Yes, mining asteroids will be autonomous.

Discovery, reaching beyond this world symbolically, will always mean more with humans. That is, until the robots get _really_ smart, but that isn't really the topic of this blog.
 

Teleoperation gives us the flexibility and cost-savings of robots with the creativity and intelligence of humans. When we talk about "robots" in space, we are referring to their human handlers as well.
 

Tele-operation is very over-rated for deep space. Maybe underwhelming is the word I'm looking for.

20 minute lags each way are ridiculous.

This project from CMU is trying to automate scientific discover for a planetary rover.
 

I always find it funny when pro-manned spaceflight advocates say that manned flight is essential for the survival of the human race. Sure, eventually the Sun will burn out and we will have to move to survive, but that is billions of years in the future. What does it matter if we don't develop good, reliable human-carrying spacecraft for the next few decades or centuries?

I remember someone once telling me we should all go to Mars because we keep polluting the Earth. I couldn't do anything but laugh. It's like saying "let's buy a new house because we don't want to clean our windows".