Tonethewone,
I was thinking of things a bit closer to home, namely the asteroids which are between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, both of which have had visits from probes. There are untold billions of tons of resources out there and eventually the price of metals and the like will rise to the point where recovering them becomes economically viable, just as rising oil prices make the recovery of Atlantic, Artic or Canadian shale oil viable. Unless humanity wishes to return to the middle ages, which most people certainly do not, these will have to be exploited.
The private sector will be driving this, with profit as the motive, tourist jaunts are simply a way of amortizing the costs. Once large capacity vehicles are developed, they will be used as trucks not busses for the elite. So what if wealthy individuals want to see space?, once not so long ago only the wealthy could afford to travel by air. Their money helped to develop the industry which today keeps us in employment, could we have our present world without air transport? would we wish to return to a time when only the rich could afford to travel? tree huggers apart, the answer from the majority would be a resounding no. I expect that within 100 years space travel for commercial purposes will be as commonplace as air freight is today. As for investing in projects that will not come to fruition before ones death, we do it all the time, its called having children.
Come on mate, have a little faith, sod the doom mongers and enjoy.
NB