Ask Wiz, the code needed to get the AI in EU4 & Stellaris takes time and only works because of the parameters set up in the game. Add the variables of a space war and it would go beyond our current levels of tech.
As mentioned, computers have been calculating space manoeuvres faster and better than humans could since the 1960s. If humans go to Mars, it will be computers taking them there. Yes, programming AI takes time.. but training and educating an astronaut takes time. Designing and building crew habitation module takes time, not to mention astronomical resources, and at this point enabling humans to live for years on end in interplanetary space has never been shown to be within our current levels of tech either. Humans have lived in low earth orbit on the international space station and mir for over a year, but only with regular resupplies from the surface of earth.
The technology to put computers into interplanetary space already exists and has been demonstrated many times, however crude those computers may be. The technology to put humans there is still completely untested.
A computer is a tool, you still need to tell it what to do and it could be that everything can be automated down to imputing the "Riker maneuver or whatever" but you still need to tell it what to do.
In a sense this is true, but you don't need to be in space to tell it what to do. You can program it with a set of actions and give it some basic critera on which to decide which action to use at any given time. The advantages of being in space just don't seem worth the hassle of getting you there.
Lets say we were talking with Nelson about the weather gage in naval combat. We're arguing about the technology of the day and you're sitting there arguing about needing the weather gage and how you always need it. You're arguing in modern technology terms... No one knows what future technology will bring.
That's an interesting analogy, but consider that for Nelson, as for us, there is still weather. Neither Nelson or ourselves could come up with a way to completely remove the influence of weather, and thus weather has been a constant in naval warfare for centuries because, barring some kind of insanely powerful technology so advanced it may as well be magic, it's a basic feature of our world.
The same is true of space. All kinds of wonderful technological solutions may be discovered in the coming centuries, and yet it's likely that the basic features of space which we have observed will always be approximately the same.
You then contradicted yourself... How long does it take for a message to be broadcast to Mars? Just imagine the advantage of having a ship able to broadcast a message THEN and THERE at a strategic level and even a tactical level. You'd wipe out a fleet of robots before they could even defend themselves... "okay just add defensive computers to the computer fleet" What happens if a shot was an accident two fleets have just wiped each other out because of a mistake.
Okay. But how does your human in Mars orbit know that war has been declared? How long does it take to communicate with them? The answer is that it would take exactly the same amount of time as it would take to activate a fleet of automated ships in the same position. Also, how would a human operator be able to tell that a shot fired at them was an accident? I mean, I guess they could call their superiors back on earth and check.. oh wait, they couldn't, it would take the same amount of time as it would take an AI to confirm that no mistake would made, the difference being that the AI could afford to calmly wait and simply evade (because evasion is very easy in space) because it's a machine and isn't cognitively biased to preserving itself.
The light barrier is one of those things like the weather. It's likely to be there forever, barring some kind of magical intervention, and it applies to everything equally, human or machine.
You disregard technology (like being able to create artificial gravity and engines powerful enough to escape earth's pull with ease) and rely on tech (like superfast communications over great distances and the ability for machines to repair themselves easily in space) when it suits your theory.
Neither of those things are necessary. The light barrier is a constant feature of space, but communication at the speed of light over great distances already exists and has been successfully demonstrated. Also, why do machines in space need to repair themselves? Assuming they are small enough, then the cost of leaving them in space is still vastly smaller than the cost of putting humans into space.
The ISS houses six people in low earth orbit. It is one of the most expensive megaprojects ever devised, with a total building, launching and running cost of around a 100 billion euros/dollars to date. Even if it cost 500 million euros or dollars to build and assemble each automated spaceship and required a $500 million space shuttle sized launch to get them into space, you'd still be able to launch a hundred of them for less than the cost of the ISS, let alone some hypothetical super-ISS with guns and artificial gravity.
It's likely that the cost of space launches will reduce in the near future due to the advent of very efficient spaceplanes and/or the development of economies of scale designed to speed up satellite launches. The thing is, both these methods of reducing costs disproportionately favour smaller payloads. "Powerful engines" are a long way off, and when they do make an appearance may well be unsuitable for use in atmosphere. For example, we already have a theoretical method of launching very large payloads into space via nuclear pulse rockets.. it's not feasable at the moment, however, due to the potential environmental consequences of detonating hundreds of nuclear bombs in earth's atmosphere.
Finally, why are their humans in space at the moment if it is such a waste of time? Why do they go on space walks to fix things?
There's a simple answer and a complicated answer.
The simple answer is that the humans who are in space at the moment are on the ISS, which is a microgravity lab. They're there to do scientific experiments which can't be done under earth's gravity.
On a slightly more complex level though, it's because manned space exporation is still, to some extent, working on cold war politically driven model. Space stations were a big propaganda victory for the Soviet Space Agency after "losing" the space race, and in some sense the ideological component of space colonization hasn't kept pace with the advances in automation and robotics. The knowledge gained in the ISS will be incredibly useful if we ever want to send humans to Mars, for example, but only if sending humans to Mars is the goal unto itself. For the actual exploitation of space rather than merely inhabiting it for the sake of inhabiting it, it's increasingly clear that automation will be the way forward.
As for fixing things. They have to fix things because they need those things to live. The fact that humans live there makes it absolutely vital that everything works exactly as it's supposed to at all times.
