>We should also be developing robots that can do what the human can do. That investment will pay off in many ways

That investment is absolutely worthwhile, but we aren't even vaguely close to a general-purpose robot that can do what humans do. One human geologist could do the work of an entire fleet of Curiosity rovers. It's a matter of if all of the associated dangers of space travel worth all of that scientific knowledge gained from both sending people to do interplanetary science and from developing new tech to get us there is worth it - IMO, the answer is a resounding 'yes'.

Yep, a lot of people think it's worth it. I'm with you. Good luck getting the money. One accident will cost years to "improve safety", and people will question if it's really worth it. Keeping humans safe is costly.

I bet we can get the money for better robots. It doesn't even need to come from NASA's budget. The DoD, private industry tax breaks, etc can pay for the research.

https://www.wired.com/story/atlas-robot-does-backflips-now/

If we lose a robot on Mars, not much changes.

Taking extreme sports and jobs into consideration, and the fact that space is considered more and more as a lucrative destination for profit making, I think that human beings will be the first to do most of the ground breaking work. Virgin Galactic, the SpaceX moon flyby, etc. are meant for tourists, hence the different approach to absolute safety. I think the public's acceptance of the dangers of space, and the thrill/benefits of confronting them will come before we get to the point of having the necessary robot tech to make significant progress without humans on site. Then again if you consider things like Andy Weir's The Martian you realise that's a likely scenario of the kind of spending that might happen in the case of a stranded astronaut after a disaster, sending more afterwards would still be a financial decision rather than one of public opinion regarding safety however, and in my opinion the tech and financial support for these sorts of missions is going to be up to it in a few years.

Yeah, someone always brings up mining, Alaskan crabbing (was it crabbing?), etc. Anyway sure, 4 years ago we had the same conversation... I guess someday greed might overcome the risk. Still, the lawsuits over loved ones could get expensive.

My observation is that we can start immediately with attainable goals, at a cost we'll likely accept, with no risk of human life, and with immediate economic and technological benefits.

In the meantime, we've lost 4 years... with another decade more with no real goal.

My suggestion makes forward progress every year. At some point, sending humans to Mars, for example, becomes a small inexpensive step, rather than a giant costly leap.

There's more than just cost. Round trip latency to Mars can be reasonably measured in tens of minutes. Tasks that a human can do in seconds take days with a robot at that distance. Curiosity can move at up to 0.09mph. A human infant can move faster than that.

We've invested many billions of dollars on robots already and this is the best we have. If we could spend $200bn to do he science in a few years that trillions dollars in R&D and probably the better part of century of iteration would take, why wouldn't we send humans up?

It seems crazy to me to throw money at robotics that work well on Mars when we are already investing billions and billions of dollars on robots here on earth that aren't even able to do the things that humans do.

> It will cost $200 billion to get to Mars by 2040?

That's not a lower bound. That's an upper bound on what hopeful NASA contractors think they can milk the government for in doing it The NASA Way.

Going to Mars doesn't have to cost 200 billion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct