Yet the chance of saving human lives en masse and permanently advancing knowledge of our own bodies should be more important than ticking a checkbox of walking on the moon and then shelving whole thing for good (that comes from person who loves astronomy etc but there are simply way more important matters in society).

We iteratively succeeded against AIDS ffs, that looked like impossible mission in 80s and 90s, we just threw more science and research on the problem. Your arguments are not that good