There is a long way left before a robot will be anywhere near as good as a human. First of all, we need better mechanics. The mars rovers are a great example.

There is a long way left before a robot will be anywhere near as good as a human. First of all, we need better mechanics. The mars rovers are a great example. They work really well until they get stuck in the dirt. Something like that should ideally not be possible. We might solve that problem soon enough, but doing stuff in space is problematic if you rely on teleoperation. Even on the moon, the delay makes it difficult to control anything as unpredictable as a rover with wheels on a rocky and dusty surface. Mars is obviously even worse. On Jupiter, you'd have a delay of over two hours before you see what your commands did. Obviously, we need autonomous robots. To make them even close to as useful as a human, they need pretty strong AI. We simply don't have that technology yet (if ever). I think the best solution would be to send a human operator to monitor and command a larger number of semi-autonomous robots. If we can get the operator to control a robot Avatar-style, he won't even need to leave the space craft. He could stay in orbit, removing the need for any sot of landing/take off vehicle, considerably reducing the risk of getting stranded.