Indeed he did

Yet, there was already a longer, harder way which was conventional in those days

Columbus had an idea (whether for commercial reasons or not) that things could be different.

Unless that type of attitude nothing would ever have ever changed discovered or invented and humans would most likely perished from the face of the earth (not a bad solution for the rest of its habitats...:))

Anyways, I believe that space exploration is as an important part of science as any other field (mainly because it joins so many fields of science under the same roof)