By Stephanie Lyons We have long questioned whether humans or robots can better do a job. Man vs. machine has been the subject of science fiction from Frankenstein to the Terminator . In books and movies, we like to believe in the triumph of the human spirit, that there is something about being human which makes us superior in all ways. The machine may put up a good fight, but in the end, man will triumph. But humans are not better at everything.
Space is a hostile place for the human body.
Lack of oxygen, extreme temperatures, fast moving particles and radiation are among the dangers humans face when they venture into space. Robots are immune to some of these dangers and less threatened by others. We have commonly used machines as our eyes, ears and hands to explore and do work in other hostile environments, such as deep-water exploration of the oceans. Just because an environment is hostile to humans though, doesn't mean that every job is best done with a robot. Sometimes, we haven't built a robot that can do the job, the matter is urgent, or things don't go as planned.