An issue I see with the sats over humans arguments is that with people up there the experiments benefit from having a human vs having to create a robot to do al

An issue I see with the sats over humans arguments is that with people up there the experiments benefit from having a human vs having to create a robot to do all the experimental steps for ever single experiment. In the end we need people up there anyways to study various mitigation techniques for the ways the human body does not do well under micro gravity so having them also perform experiments with reusable equipment and simplifying the setup is a big plus. For example there's the combustion lab up on the ISS instead of having to make and launch an equivalent apparatus for each new batch of experiments and either leaving it as space trash or throwing it away into the atmosphere we can just send up samples and the astronauts. Sure on a full cost comparison satellites might come out cheaper but I think another important cost is the cost paid by the actual research teams. In a satellite model the costs to the research team go way up meaning fewer teams can possibly afford it where with the ISS a lot of the support equipment is already in place and you get a pair of human hands that can handle complex steps and adapt to issues better.