n. //It's progress ... and where would the world be without that?//
That depends on what you call "progress". It may have brought penicillin, but it has also brought mechanised warfare, and a polluted environment.
Taking the length of your arm as a measure of time, one stroke of a nail file across your finger nail and the amount of nail removed represents the time humanity has lived on the planet, and what an awful mess we are now making of it, so some say, why stop at that, why not go out and eff-up the universe too?
There is now so much scrap metal and plastics orbiting the Earth, (debris from rockets in only 50 years), that we are now having to work out ways of trying to clear it away because of the danger it imposes.
There are far too many requirements for the future of humankind here on Earth to attend to before bothering about space travel. (imo)