How to Colonize an Asteroid
The word "Robot" literally means "slave". What we generally refer to as a robot is essentially a man made mindless slave, usually controlled by a computer, and dedicated to a particular task. An automatic dishwasher is a robot, being a computer controlled device dedicated to the task of washing and drying our dishes. This type of robot can be found in many places around us - modern vending machines, an office photocopier, and as welders in automobile assembly plants.
In space, we can use these "slaves" to do a lot of the dangerous work for us, like digging into the asteroid or repairing damage on our colony ship. We can also pack several of them into a relatively small cargo area, which will allow a few colonists to do the work of many.