You love robots and I marvel at what unmanned craft have done for solar
system reconnaissance BUT I studied computer science and geology and I
am very aware of robotic limitations. Robots are great for first
looks, but rate a very poor second to actually having trained observers
on the spot.

Take the wonderful mars rovers that have spent near 2 years on the
surface but have covered much less ground than Gene and Jack did in 3
days on Apollo 17. In field geology human observation and intuition
play a critical role, Jack saw some interesting orange soil and decided
to sample, and robots currently - and for a considerable time to come
will - lack the ability to function just this way. Doing science by
remote control is difficult and has some very real limitations.