Comment This is why we need people in space (Score 5, Insightful) 179
And this is why robots aren't going replace people anytime soon. One little thing goes wrong with an unmanned mission and either a major subsystem is written off or the entire mission is a failure. People are able to do thigs robots aren't going to be able to do for quite a while longer. And it gets even worse as soon as you go beyond full duplex radio range. If you have to send a command, wait for a result, try something else, repeat until you scream, things get really slow the second you aren't executing preplanned directions without errors.
And people can perform physical actions we have yet to build a robot to do reliably. Sure they can put thousands of bolt on one after another on an assembly line but how many could deal with this one stuck bolt? None. Now try to build one that can open up a panel and troubleshoot wiring or plumbing.