This opinion was born and raised in an environment of government funding for space. There is no fundamental reason why it should cost dozens of billions of dollars to get to space. If private industry brings it down to a cost more related to the true, fundamental price, it goes flying out the window. Merely millions to put people in space is of a kind with oil exploration, building transport networks, and all sorts of other situations where private industry under solid government routinely invest by the millions or even billions. At that point the argument actually <i>completely</i> flips around; anywhere we can afford to put a human, it is <i>more</i> cost-effective to do so than send a robot.