[ericd]

There's a big emotional difference between sending a robot and a human to explore. The latter is clearly much more relatable and inspiring to people. So whether it's a pointless waste of money depends on what you're trying to achieve. But I'd argue that the inspiration and unifying aspects are two of the biggest payoffs of space exploration, and robots don't quite cut it there.

Also, humans are much more flexible than the robots we can currently create, which is pretty useful.