Well humans can do many things, a robot cannot. But in general yes, sending a swarm of robots to mars will deliver way more data for way less money, than a human mission.
For example: suffocating, starving, dying of thirst, getting sick, suffer psychologic breakdowns, having their bodies deteriorate due to low gravity,...
No but robots on the other hand have the disadvantage of being dumb with no understanding of the situation.
Also, they can "die" of thirst for energy as well. Have some unplanned thing gone wrong? Boom, all mission is lost. Happened countless times.
Human are flexible. Why do you think, they sometimes need to go outside to fix something on the ISS? Not automated yet.
With more advanced robots that might be possible, but currently robots can only do, what you exactly told them to do. Depending on the real parameters, that might be enough, or not. And they certainly can get "sick" and broken as well. Hardware as well as software.
> robots on the other hand have the disadvantage of being dumb with no understanding of the situation
Which is hardly a disadvantage given that this includes not understanding that we send them on a mission with no return, and a high likelihood of something going horribly wrong.
> Also, they can "die" of thirst for energy as well.
True, but that energy can be collected via a few solar panels, or provided for decades from a relatively small nuclear battery. Human supplies for a prolonged stay cannot be collected on Mars, and take up alot of space and payload capacity for even a single human. And that's not including the fact that with humans we also have to take many many extra steps to be able to bring them back.
> but currently robots can only do, what you exactly told them to do
Depending on the situation, that can easily become necessary for humans as well. Astronauts on missions do very few things that ground control doesn't know about or didn't order them to do / plan ahead for them to do. Yes, this includes procedures during emergencies. Given the more severe resource constraints and even slimmer margins for error, the situation won't be any different on Mars.
Sorry if that sounds un-romantic, but the movies of brave buckaroos McGuyver-ing their way out of trouble on the Red Planet, relying on their wits, duct tape and tons of plot armor, isn't how this will play out in real life.
Well, Apollo 13 for example was saved by human improvisation. As long as we cannot build full self repairing robots, humans will be highly beneficial for maintaining any kind of equipment.
> Apollo 13 for example was saved by human improvisation.
Yes, by human improvisation on the ground, with teams of engineers and scientists figuring out the exact steps the Astronauts had to perform, and transmitting these instructions up for the crew to implement.
Just like they would have done, and in fact did on many occasions, with a robotic probe that found itself in a pickle.
Yes, and my microwave oven with integrated grill can do alot of things that my cast-iron skillet cannot. Problem is, when out camping, there is no power outlet for the microwave, and I'm pretty sure if it gets hit by heavy rain, or if I wash it in a stream, it will be broken afterwards.
For much the same reason, robots are much better suited to do exploratory work on Mars, than humans.
Apollo 13 was saved by human improvisation on the ground; the crew could not have survived with a Mars-like communication delay (40-ish minutes at worst).
