we went to the moon to prove to ourselves that we could do it...that and cold war propaganda
Astronomy has gained a lot of public support and interest, get pretty pictures back (data for the eggheads so they can model planets, stars etc)
Satellites for cumincation and spying.......obvious rewards there.
Funny how that multibillion dollar space station gets a "yah whatever" reaction from peeps on the ground. Still its good practice and messing around for stuff we will want to do in the future.
Robots will pretty much take over space exploration, and wont be toolong before they will be good enough to start building things like moonbases. Space stations don't need to be built in space....they are built on the ground and hauled up into orbit.I'm not too bothered if its an android or a human walking round mars, yeah be cool for it to be a human but when you look at the costs and dangers you quickly see robots are way ahead. they don't have to come back for one thing. If you offered me a free trip to the moon or mars id prolly turn it down flat from a danger point of view, though every fibre in my body would be gagging to go. I'm no shrinking violet, sadly, the dangers of space travel will be with us for a long time to come.500 or so people have gone into space , 1 in 30 died
add a zero in my favour and id be much happier to gohttp://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_have_gone_into_space_to_date_and_what_are_their_names
when the space age started it was a tale of "rockets and men" we didn't have robots back then, now its a tale of Rockets, Robots and Men.....in that order
The work of robotic engineers may be less glamorous, but its saving human lives and providing cheaper if slightly hamstrung solutions for the exploration of space