I love scientific exploration, particularly exploration of the cosmos. I have complete confidence that we will soon be able to send a team to Mars to trudge around and take samples. And when we do it, I will be glued to the TV screen, and very interested. But why should we do this? It is ridiculous. As you correctly pointed out, robots and probes can do everything we want to do so much better than living humans, for far less money, and without the drama of (likely) killing humans. There are almost no justifications at this point for sending any more humans into space. But we should continue to send probes, telescopes and drones throughout our solar system and beyond. Maybe one day, if we better understand space/time warping, anti-matter engines and the like, there may again be reason to discuss human flight (but even then, I expect robots will be much more capable and effective). Sending humans into space is a political solution to a scientific problem, and we should stop doing it.