What is the point of going to Mars or the Moon?

On Mon, 18 Jan 2021, Dave wrote:

What is the point of going to Mars or the Moon, besides having a look
around? One reason I could think of was for archival purposes, in
case some thing bad happened to the home world (Earth), there could be
re-establishment of civilization. It would be nice to come down like
aliens for afar, enlighten people, and get them rebuilding a few
cities.

Our cullturn will not survive long enought to personally reach Mars.

There are a lot of species with agricultural and farming use, but not
sure if actually need to store seeds/embryos, or the genetic data and
then make them up again with genetic engineering and a restore from
digital.

Archival generally doesn't make economic sense, and is best provided
by government. Non-profit might make promises, but doesn't always
deliver. e.g. archive.org lost some data permanently a few years ago.

Also it would be nice to have a feature, visible with the naked eye on
the Moon, that showed a human construction. Should do some figures,
but maybe needing a basic x50 telescope would make the scheme
practical.