> For human spaceflight to be ruled out, automation has to be superior for every worthwhile application of human labor in space, not just some of them.
This is the case right now. There is not a single activity in space exploration right now, that humans can do better than robots.
> Here on Earth, automation is predicted to increase, but few are predicting it makes human labor useless.
Because here on earth, humans can breathe, eat, drink, piss and poop, without millions of dollars of equipment required to do so.
> There is not a single activity in space exploration right now, that humans can do better than robots.
This is clearly false. If you mean "there is no activity for which a robot could be developed at great expense to do that activity", then that's closer to the truth, but that cost is part of the argument why humans might still do the activity if launch costs are much lower.
> there is no activity for which a robot could be developed at great expense to do that activity
That expense is still orders of magnitude lower than sending humans.
And even IF launch costs go lower (and that's a big if), it wouldn't change the equation: If I can send more into space for my money, then sure, I could launch astronauts and their water supply and space toilets...or I could use that capacity to launch more, bigger, and more capable robots.
So, that explains why the private effort to service the HST wants to send up a robot.
Oh wait. That's totally wrong. They're proposing a mission to send up people to do the maintenance. Because that's far cheaper than developing robots to do it would be.
This is the case right now. There is not a single activity in space exploration right now, that humans can do better than robots.
> Here on Earth, automation is predicted to increase, but few are predicting it makes human labor useless.
Because here on earth, humans can breathe, eat, drink, piss and poop, without millions of dollars of equipment required to do so.