Suppose that we suddenly get a message from outer space that there is another planet with billions of ‘people’ on it and they want to communicate with us.
Democrats would fall all over themselves trying to get there and sign them up to vote!..........
I agree that if there is a civilization on a planet that we can reach we would definitely try to go there and it would be well-supported by government. I would imagine we would never try to land on the planet though because of possible cross-contamination of bacteria. I wouldn’t be worried about viruses because they need to be genetically compatible with their hosts and there is zero chance of that with alien life.