The gain is, actually, putting humans in the space. It's an arbitrary objective that you (or me) may not share, but it seems to be the primary objective. Other gains usually don't outweigh the costs, but are useful at marketing the idea to bot people. They lower the perceived-by-bot-people loss, to the point where the loss may be accepted as the cost for winning the human-people.

As far as I am concerned, I want human uploads in space. Durr.