A big advantage of space robots is that they need neither food nor drink and can support very inhospitable conditions. More important still, although expensive to design and produce, their loss is always preferable to that of an astronaut. At this month's ASTRA 2004 workshop robots designed in ESA’s space research and technical centre in the Netherlands attracted much attention.
More at:
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM8XXWJD1E_index_0.html