Investigation and exploration is directly related to imagination and emotion. Because of the great political impact involved, we need to have plans in place to

Investigation and exploration is directly related to imagination and emotion. Because of the great political impact involved, we need to have plans in place to directly image these planets. Plausible technology might, in our lifetimes, be able to resolve this planet as a dot. But you'll never get more than that. What is interesting is that it's easier to measure the composition of its atmosphere than to resolve it as a dot. Find me a planet with an oxygen-rich atmosphere and it starts looking very likely that we might have life there. On your other point, though, I don't think there's much point in having a political will to send people to another star. We're still (at the very least) hundreds of years away from the point where we can even start to think sensibly about how we might want to do it. It's like Columbus wanting to go to the moon.