Curiosity cost $2.5 billion. The next generation rover, Mars 2020, is based on the same design. Where is this technological leap in rover technology?
> Where is this technological leap
Umm Moore's Law? Curiosity was a big leap from Opportunity and Mars 2020, while built on the same platform, has a laundry list of upgrades.
Meanwhile, a manned mission is likely to be a trillion dollar project and even if they come in at half a trillion, that's still literally hundreds of $2 billion rovers.
So could a better rover and rovers are getting better quickly. And you could send hundreds of rovers for the cost of a manned mission.