<p>I'm sure that once we're working at anything resembling industrial scale, we'll find the teleoperation of drone robots the best solution - and so a man/machine combination. I find it difficult to believe it won't be better to have human eyes watching the mining or manufacturing site. </p><p>The machines wouldn't truly be robots, so the teleoperators would still be nearby. On Mars, I can't see why the astronaut wouldn't be right there with the machines, walking the site like any Supervisor. Near Earth, it might be preferable to have the astronauts inside a nearby spacecraft of some sort. But I think we're a very long way from any sort of programming that can replace having some experienced site supervisor watching the site. </p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>He who isn't busy being born is busy dyin'.</p><p> </p> </div>