That's true, but the argument "why bother going there" is exactly the same argument as "why bother making a (telescope|space probe|satellite|rover|deep space ne

That's true, but the argument "why bother going there" is exactly the same argument as "why bother making a (telescope|space probe|satellite|rover|deep space network|apollo program|radio telescope|neutrino telescope|particle accelerator|submarine|etc etc etc etc etc ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC)". When Galileo built his telescope, he didn't do it because he was looking for greenhouse gases on Venus. That's what a lot of people don't seem to get: that science and discovery is not linear or predictable. Advances in one area have unexpected uses in other areas, and it's all cumulative and feeds back on itself. You build a telescope to look up at the sky because it's pretty, and hey presto! Next thing you know you've got a heliocentric model and a theory of universal gravitation. You build a radio telescope because you're interested in long-range communications, and wham! Cosmic Microwave Background and deep insight into the origin of the universe. You decide to study the distances to a bunch of galaxies, and pow! Looks like we'll have to throw out that steady state theory. There are so many examples.