We are not trying to catalogue all habitable planets because we will be living there tomorrow. It is really far fetched to say that we would be going past even Mars anytime soon.

Instead we look for habitable planets to further our knowledge of planetary systems and the universe. The Kepler spacecraft, for example, collects a lot of data. This data is then distributed to various scientists who might need it for their own research.

We discover new planets, new star systems, among so many other things that continue to deepen our knowledge of the universe we inhibit.

Honestly, I am not qualified to answer exactly how all this research work will benefit us, but I can write with certainty that no scientific research is a waste of time, even when we don’t know what to do about it.

So we are exploring other planets without any plan of reaching them someday, but during the process, we get to know so much about our own planet and the universe. And all this knowledge we gain might help us in so many different ways in the near or distinct future!