Sometimes these guys come across as just plain greedy
Like they are afraid their research budgets won't get well funded.
It is not about peer reviewed papers.
It is about exploration conquest and exploitation.
We will go to space because it is the biggest stage upon which we can manifest our dreams, not because it will answer some arcane point of science.
The science will come, in spades. But we will go because it is there, beckoning with opportunity.
Ed