Many use the argument about the Shuttle or the Space Station that they're going nowhere but round and round our own planet.
Is it fair?
After all, the Shuttles, the Soyuzes and the Station are in SPACE !!
What does that mean?
Space is something you need to reach, if you want to stay there for more than 10 minutes, by acquiring a speed of at least 28,000 km/h. This brings you to low Earth orbit, inevitably, and going around the planet.

Space is vacuum, with all the things that it means that cannot be done on Earth.

Space is weightlessness with fascinating consequences to the human body, to objects, to our orientation, etc.

Space is reachable for humans through means a number of countries can achieve, which gives a sense of cooperation and competition.

And one very important aspect: space can be reached at a high enough altitude for the eyes to grasp a huge Earth landscape and see it go by at a just right enough speed for the brain never to get bored by the ever changing landscape and the night views allow for a show as well on Earth as in the universe!

This is why tourists will want to go to space: for the view!

Astronauts to the Moon have all said the Moon landscape isn't as fascinating as Earth's, BUT they saw the Earth from a completely different perspective and that was the main legacy of Apollo!

Besides, the Moon already goes around the Earth and Mars and the Earth around the Sun, so any spaceflight is a circle somewhere.

Besides, a space station is a destination, a place to go to. It can be left alone or used for totally different purposes than the ones imagined in the first place or anything in between!

Exploring is the idea behind this fuss, certainly, but well, robots are doing it for us and prepare the way.
I wonder if it would be wise to send humans somewhere in space without prior knowledge of what would be found (which is pure exploration but which means there could very well be nothing relevant for humans). Mars seems to be a goal not to be explored but the argument is to use it , colonize it, exploit it because they intend to stay there. This means a very good knowledge of the place is needed before going there.

I believe Robert Park's arguments make sense.

Raoul