Not being a geologist you would not see anything special about "orange"
soil (regolith on planetary bodies)! But to a geologist that could
mean regolith of volcanic origin and there was quite a "hot" debate
about possible lunar volcanism in the 1960's and 70's and that is what
made that observation so important. Take my word for it, for a
geologist there is nothing like being there and being able to get a
feel for the landscape and the forces that have acted upon it and no
high quality data link is ever going to be an effective substitute for
that feeling. Deep-sea geology is a good example, use robots to do
general surveying but send manned submersibles down to look at
interesting features.

Moore's law is great, but can it go on forever? How long before we
can build artificial intelligence as good as our own? What about the
reasons for heading up, after all planetary disasters do happen and
colonising other worlds is the best long-term bet for our species. Do
not let your faith in technology blind you to much as the future seldom
turns out as one expects - just ask the Apollo guys of the 1960's (one
of whom was a geologist - namely Jack Schmidt (spelling?) - and the
rest did extensive geological training and mostly functioned quite
well).