Is it really necessary to send humans to those places just to get the knock-on benefits? Couldn’t we do those things directly, without going there?
It seems to me that, today, those who have the money to spend on these endeavors would only do so if there were perceived short-term benefits to themselves. That means they plan to exploit the resources, or increase their own power somehow.
I know the good engineers that make this happen are doing it for the challenge and in the pursuit of knowledge, and I know that’s why we poors support it, but that doesn’t “pay the bills.” What is the motivation behind the money? Why are they really doing this?
If their resources cost more to harvest than what it costs to send a rocket back out, it’s a dud. Sending humans, lifeforms evolved for life on Earth, is stupid beyond belief.
You send life engineered to what best fits the environment, and if your society can’t cope with that fact because it is too species-centric, you get nothing. Never mind what actual interstellar travel requires, which is coping with timescales and hibernation states completely alien to us. Because a lot of what space requires involves a lot of what we can’t cope with, it is far more likely that it will belong to our successors.