We can't see crap now. We need more, bigger, better - and most importantly - space-based telescopes to be able to image interesting objects in anything resembling fidelity. There's e.g. a bunch of exoplanets, or hell, even planets in our own system, that we could image from a distance, if we could put couple hundred tons worth of equipment in space. For the more ambitious future, there are papers showing that you could even use the Sun itself as a lens to shoot pictures of exoplanets comparable with quality to photos of Earth from early days of space exploration! So, if we want to see things and truly learn about them remotely, we still have to get much better at sending things to space.

Robotics still ain't good enough to make it work alone, we'll need manned missions to establish a manufacturing-based economy in cislunar space, if we want to get anything done this century. Risky, manned missions, that in time will yield good profits.