The romanticism of the adventure is one of the strongest motivators of exploration. Take that away, and it's just work.

Besides, there are practical reasons for sending humans into space. One day, in order for the human species to survive, we will have to move off this rock and travel to other regions of our galaxy. We might as well start our baby steps now.

If this was a comment on the life of corporations, I would mod it "Insightful" (just substitue "galaxy" with "corporation" and "back hole" with "CEO").

Just goes to show you, micro and macro-scale ecology is eeringly similar. I think we need a lecture on fractals and how they apply to this situation.

It appears now we ridicule people who do something unusual and pioneering (however naive), like the priest in TFA. Have we had the Darwin awards in centuries past, we would have ridiculed the death of every explorer we ever had instead of mourn it.