&quot;Anywhere <i>we can afford to put a human</i>&quot;, and I&#x27;ll remind you, that&#x27;s under the new, wildly cheaper domain of space flight, not the current one. If only a robot is affordable at all, there&#x27;s no debate about which is &quot;better&quot;. Clearly that is not the argument being made, though, because then there&#x27;s no point in even repeating the line about robots being more cost effective.<p>If space flight is cheap, you&#x27;re better off sending a far more capable human than a robot, because if you&#x27;re going to spend $3million for a robot or $5million for a human, the human is going to be more than 40% more effective than a robot. It&#x27;s a totally different story than when the difference is $12billion or $500billion.