[wongarsu]

Astronauts have traveled further on the moon on the three missions that included the Lunar Roving Vehicle than all our mars rovers managed combined.

If you give a mars rover a command, it takes an average of 12 minutes for that command to reach mars, and another 12 minutes for the confirmation to come back. That makes remote control very hard, and we aren't all that good with autonomous robots.

So until we figure that whole artificial intelligence thing out humans are a much better bet for getting significant amounts of science and mining done than robots.

[mcbits]

The rovers we've sent to Mars weren't designed to travel great distances. Autonomous rovers built for maximum travel distance would be pretty easy except for supplying them with enough energy and protecting their delicate parts from the elements. Both problems are harder for humans, even on a one-way mission.