Flipping rockets is a simpler problem in the sense that it the required technology already existed, there just wasn't anyone with enough incentive and resources

Flipping rockets is a simpler problem in the sense that it the required technology already existed, there just wasn't anyone with enough incentive and resources to actually do it. Human-level robotics, on the other hand, is not a problem of missing incentive. For all I know about the field (as a casual observer), we are still several breakthroughs away from achieving this goal.