I dunno, robotics requires so much planning, and technology development. If we have humans at a site, we can be like "Hey, take this pick-axe and go dig over t

I dunno, robotics requires so much planning, and technology development. If we have humans at a site, we can be like "Hey, take this pick-axe and go dig over there". To get a robot to do that requires up-front design, development, funding, and the inevitable turf-wars and politics. Imagine going out to weed your garden vs. convincing a committee with various unaligned priorities to fund a project to build a system to weed your garden. Four years later, it's cancelled due to new President / shifting priorities. Humans are just generally capable at a level that robots are not -- it allows for less pre-planning, and all the pre-planning is what kills NASA's ability to do anything in a timely and efficient manner. EDIT> I am in awe of the work done to e.g. put Curiosity on Mars, but the longer we drag out the planning and dev phase, the greater the chance the political and bureaucratic effects will derail the engineering.