Isn’t there something about “exploration” that seems important to a non-neglible amount of humans? I don’t want everything we do to serve the rat race we’re in. Let’s loose our money on something amazing.
There's a lot more to exploration than space exploration (I think exploring something like the human brain will end up having a greater emotional and practical impact myself). But even if we just look at space exploration, we don't really get a lot from human space flight. As I said, in situations where it's possible to use human astronauts, robots seem like they would be more effective. And for most of the places in our solar system, we simply won't be able to use humans at all anytime soon. The missions to, say, Europa are going to be done by robots.
Still, many people, including myself, enjoyed watching the launch. Maybe something like this is more analagous to a cathedral or memorial.
Not to mention, a probe or rover sent far away all have to go through one of the few DSNs, that can only do so much and so fast[0], and are generally scarce services. Forget about e.g. running 20 simultaneous robotic missions in different areas of Mars.
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[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Deep_Space_Network#Curren...
I have to ask, why the rush? Why not wait 30-50 years until the robots are smart enough? Or we can bioengineer humans that are better adapted to that harsh environment?
This feels a bit like a real time strategy game, where someone at the start of the game wants to spend all their resources on big expensive research projects near the end of the tech tree. You're always better off building up the economy so you have enough surplus to tackle those expensive items later.
(Note that RTS economy is based around acquiring new resources. You can't make minerals by advertising, speculating, or even having your soldiers trade with each other. There are games that try to simulate trade, e.g. Stellaris, but even there it behaves more like a mine than like an economy.)
(Also: the rush is because our lifespans are finite, and I'd like to at least see some of that before I die.)
Also, in terms of bettering our lives... I'd bet advertising beats the ISS. What has the ISS given us? I know hundreds of small businesspeople that would never have gotten off the ground without modern advertising. There are people out there that click on ads and buy things, and that makes them happy.
It certainly is way overpriced in my opinion, but for me, it has served as a reason to wake up excited on many of my days off.
That being said, ads are a great way to bootstrap so many awesome things. I think the cynicism comes from the feeling of privacy invasion.