It's 1969 all over again and people are falling back in love with space. Only now, humanity isn't simply obsessed with the moon, we're looking at other celestial bodies, suns, and galaxies. It's not because human interest is piqued with the beauty of space and the stars, no no no, the reason everyone's obsessing all over again is because of two main reasons. For starters, all those rich folks are looking for a Planet B where they can evacuate Earth in case they accidentally blow it up. Reason number two (a far more exciting prospect) is that there are probably aliens out there. We're not talking little green martian boys, we're talking microscopic life forms that don't need gravity to digest. Thrilling!
So even if our hopes of speaking to intelligent life in space are shattered, at least we've spent millions to send a guy in an airtight suit to go take a look at the sky sparklies up close.