Learning. Each individual thing we learn may not instantly revolutionize human life, but they build on each other. Knowing there's life on Mars, for example, and how it lives may help scientists with figuring out humans can live there. Life means elements that are necessary for us, too. Bases on Mars can assist with things like mining in space, exploring further out into the solar system which may help with discovering more resources useful to humans, etc. Nothing progresses without continuing to gather more information and learning more about the universe around us.
Insects on Mars would mean either that identical life forms evolved on two separate planets or that there was previous contact between the planets. Either would completely upend everything we know. Insects in Mars are as close to impossible as anything can be. Life forms are not. Knowledge need not be transactional. Neither does culture. The world would survive if Shakespeare's plays and Beethoven's music never existed but it is better for them. Knowledge of the universe is a good thing in itself. And sometimes reaps unexpected rewards. Without that first modest satellite, no cell phones, email, internet, streaming TV. At the time no one knew that.
MARS is an acronym for Military Affiliated Radio Station. At Ft. Lewis I worked in on that relayed telephone calls from the states to Vietnam for free. One time we got a lady in Ohio or Indiana who called her husband taking a timeout from combat to tell him she was having wild sex with his best friend. We all could hear the conversation, had to because of the way the radio worked, and wanted to kill her.
It's funny you should mention German music and English literature. The Germans are crazy about Shakespeare. By the way, a woman's life was saved by her cat that smelled natural gas. The woman was able to open her windows and shut off the gas.
