Yes, we - you and I personally - will never step foot on other planets, but humans, or some derivative, will via Von Neumann craft with AI and a stockpile of genetic material. It may already have been going on for a billion years, and rules established more or less for competing interests as it pertains to ownership/dealing with any quasi-sentients that may be native to the rock.
“Von Neumann craft”
Never heard of this before....very interesting theory and option for exploration.
I’m not really interested in finding intelligent life. I’d rather seek planets with conditions close enough to our own that human DNA can be adapted to them.