Us or the Androids: Who Gets the Glory?

This article is a little older, but I found it pretty interesting, and relevant too.

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/090115-seti-spacefaring-humanity.html

It opens with statements seeming to convey that Earth's destiny lay in the stars. Whether from internal conflict or resources, the author believes that humanity "can't stay in the cradle forever".

The article goes on to state that colonization of our solar system is definitely feasible, stating that it would take us less than a decade to get to Neptune.

However, its also later stated that the subsequent settling of planets from other systems and galaxies would be significantly harder: it would take around 75,000 years to travel to the nearest star system , Alpha Centauri.

Thus the solution is probes. with cameras.

Unfortunately, camera and remote technology has been improving at a much faster rate than our rocket technology, with the article stating that "In other words, in seven decades our rockets sped up by a factor of ten, but in little more than half that time our cameras improved by a factor of five thousand. There's no comparison: probe technology is marching to the beat of a faster drummer."

Probes have always offered the advantage of lower cost and minimal risk. For interstellar travel, their smaller size makes them especially practical. For the same energy bill, you could propel a one-ton reconnaissance craft to another star in one-tenth the time of sending even a small clutch of humans