Robots do have a lot of benefits in space. Lots of them weren't obvious in 1950-s, but robots came a long, long way since then. So apparently did manned spacef

Robots do have a lot of benefits in space. Lots of them weren't obvious in 1950-s, but robots came a long, long way since then. So apparently did manned spaceflight. Tito, Shuttleworth, Olsen, Ansari, Simonyi, Garriot, Laliberte flights demonstrate it's much more within reach now than before. Same could be said regarding private makers of rockets, spacecrafts and even space stations. Not only we see the push to increase the new industry, with new services to humanity and new taxes to governments - we're actually learning to do things in the environment (the learning itself happens there) which is quite different from where we evolved in. And when we talk about actually living in space - including doing really complex things, like unexpected actions across the specter of what might be needed when you're actually trying to be successful for long periods of time - many robotics specialists, last time I've checked, admit that human flights are actually less costly than robotic ones. In other words, if you want to have a big enough exploration program for space, you ought to include people into that. Fortunately flying to space becomes easier as we learn more.