If one is to believe in evolution, and that Man's origins lay way back with the primordial ooze, every species since then has had one main task - keep going. Find food, shelter and protection from one's enemies long enough to reproduce. "Sine qua non." (Without which nothing.)

All else is icing. Basically irrelevant. Disneyland. And after Disneyland we head back to find food, shelter and protection. Maybe reproduce.

One can fall in love with the extras, one can dedicate one's life to them, and then one loses perspective. As a species our job is to keep going as a species and if it doesn't help with that, it's nothing we need to know.

That's not to say those expeditions aren't worthwhile - they are. That doesn't answer the argument that if you can do it you should. It doesn't satisfy those who say that since we were given curiosity we were also given the drive and permission to satisfy that curiosity.

And it does seem we were given the ability, at least in the last 500 years, to devote much time and energy into that which is novel and ultimately not necessary to our survival.

How many aborigines need to know about holographic universes as opposed to which snakes are poisonous and how far they can strike?