Holy smokes what a terrible analogy. Most of the cost for the Mars rovers was getting them to Mars. They would have been a whole lot cheaper if 1) We could h

Holy smokes what a terrible analogy. Most of the cost for the Mars rovers was getting them to Mars. They would have been a whole lot cheaper if 1) We could have delivered them by container ship and 2) We could have had some guy on mars plug them in so we didn't need cells or batteries and 3) that same guy could service them when they break down. #3 is a big deal. Planetary probes are way, way, way overdesigned compared to what you need on the earth, and all those "ways" cost exponential amounts of money. It probably wouldn't make sense to try to do everything on the job site remotely, but there's really no reason a teleoperated tractor has to cost substantially more than one with a guy in it.