Honestly, I didn't know that Nasa administration was not a scientific based corporation.

Concerning intelligent robots, I've heard the electromagnetic transmissions between the surface of Mars and Earth are too long to allows any kind of interactive driving of these robots. They will be confined to choose a stone showing superficially some predefined features. Even if it's 10 times less expensive, 20 successive robotised missions will not bring more than rubbish if there is no human decision behind to work in backplan to the choice decision level.