From Paul Glister's Web site Centauri Dreams:

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/2005.09.18_...l#1127332694978

Man or Machine on the Outer Planets?

"New technologies, rarely foreseen by 'futurists,' often change everything. Just as science fiction could not predict the PC, so visionaries like Arthur C. Clarke could not predict the developments in electronics that would make his idea of geostationary relay satellites practicable. Yes, Clarke dreamed up the idea of such satellites, but he was talking about manned space stations handling the abundant telecommunications traffic that was to come. In a mere 15 years, it would become possible for radio technology to bring Clarke's ideas to fruition, just as Earth observation, astronomy and military reconaissance would be performed by unmanned satellites.

"Now we speculate about proposed manned expeditions to Mars, but is the future human or robotic as we push into the outer Solar System? Bob Parkinson tackles the subject in an essay in the March/April issue of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. Consider the march of machinery in the years since the first manned spacecraft. People are still in low Earth orbit (other than the still unduplicated Moon landings), but every planet except Pluto has been studied by robotic probes, and the New Horizons mission will leave for Pluto as early as this January."