“Is space exploration worth it?” is a pretty open-ended question. Worth what? That is, what do you propose that the “it” payment is? Is it worth $100? Yeah, of course. Is it worth the combined effort and full resources of everyone on the planet? Probably not. (Not yet, anyway.) But maybe it will be someday. In that case, if it “might be” someday worth the continued existence of our species, then it’s worth any amount less than “everything” right now, isn’t it? It might be worth more than we can possibly devote to it, someday. To humans, anyway.
My complaint is that although I think space exploration is a worthy endeavor in and of itself, I don’t think that governments should be doing the resource allocation – or directing the exploration. They have a bad habit of militarizing and politicizing too much, and spending far too much for too little result.
I think that as a species, as @CaptainHarley alludes, we have an innate desire to explore, to travel and to find out “what’s out there”, so I think that private enterprise would do this on its own eventually in any case. I’d prefer to see those who are willing absorb the risk – and be the first to reap the rewards. I disagree with @CaptainHarley that this is something we “have to do… or we die”. I think that was hyperbolic and said for effect. Billions of humans feel no particular need to explore, and that’s not what’s killing them. Conversely, no matter what we do, we die anyway. (Perhaps he meant “as a species”, but I think the same holds true. The cosmos has been there longer than we have, and we were doing all right on the survival front before we even realized that.)