On earth, where there is teleoperation, it seems to me that one also has a human presence at the location.
In other words I am to not aware of any situation where one sends off robots by themselves to go to some uninhabited site and do work of some kind.
In other words if you using robots for underwater work at some oil platform- I assume there will be people on the oil platform.
Or if using a teleoperated coal digger, there will be people in the coal mine.

Now, I think that if you going to mine water on the Moon, you are going to use teleoperation- a lot of it. But you are also going to have some human presence on the Moon at least periodically.

I think it would a huge mistake to have NASA mine anything in space. I think it would a huge mistake for NASA to be focused on building a lunar base. I don't have a problem if NASA builds something it calls a lunar base, but having the purpose of going to the Moon to build a base is something different than simply building something which one needs to do whatever needs to be done on the Moon- a mining or hunting shack is a different creature that a palace or winter ski resort.

NASA's purpose to going to the Moon is to determine whether there is minable water on the Moon. It can also do other science work. And going to the Moon can useful in terms of testing and demonstrating systems in which will be used in later a manned mission to Mars.

NASA exploration program [which manned operations would be subset] should be to find *anything* which minable in space- the Moon, NEOs, Mars, wherever. And it should also be about basic science- solar system history, how planets and asteroids form, etc, etc.

Minable does not mean finding gold, it means finding gold which can be economically mined. There are a lot of factors involved in whether water [or anything] in minable in space.
NASA's purpose is not to mine anything, nor btw to build rocket ships, NASA's job is to explore space.

One surveys broadly large areas, and from these broad surveys, one finds areas which one examines more closely.
At this point in time we don't have enough detail on the broad survey, nor regional survey so we need better resolution from orbital platforms and obviously have not gone to areas and examined them.

We obviously need more robotic orbitors, landers exploring the Moon before humans go there. I don't know if NASA has planned enough of this non-manned exploration.
I see no reason why NASA should need to land on the Moon like it did with the Apollo mission. NASA should know exactly where it will land, it should a beacon on the surface telling it where to land, it should take a movie of the manned landing. And it should also have some kind base already somewhat establish before humans get there.