Its all cool...and many thanks to you all for your replies. Were would we be without robots and where would we be without Human exploration. The reason I brought the topic up was after hearing a spokesperson on ABC radio national responding to weather the new Obama's space plan was a good thing or not for the near future of human exploration.
When I heard the figure of 9 billion (did I hear right?) being spent on the constellation program and now that it’s been axed, I could not help but think of the documentary "Mars Underground" & what Robert Zubrin could of done with that 9 billion instead.
"Robots are for real science" I can understand why you might think that. Consider projects such as the Vela experiment, which was to detect nuclear blast on earth & the resulting discovery of Gama Ray bursts. It’s been dubbed “Astronomy that almost didn’t happen” It took a Team of Humans to sift through data that the machine could not do for them. It was through human error and human incite that a major discovery was made.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news.../ast19sep97_2/
Also Consider the how vital the information from the Apollo astronauts played, into furthering our understanding of cosmic rays and the role it has played in to protecting those in the space station today.
Telemetry and all its newly designed methods of speeding up the incoming transmissions may serve to give us a better feel for being there, but there is so much more to be gained with the presence of humans being there as well; even if it is to upgrade satellites orbiting various moons in much the same way we serviced the Hubble. Leave it to the machines…much easier, less effort but when it comes to real results nothing beats human intuition.