Bottom line: Chemical rockets are never going to take us any place interesting in the universe.
The first remote factory ships arrive, and not long after the pile collectors go out, the machines start building new rockets.
New starships, constructed from the mineralogical ultra-super-mega-wealth that is this remote asteroid treasure, begin to rise among the golden landscape. These are not Earth-rated rockets, but rather planetary transfer super-structures that can move entire cities worth of materials, slowly and surely, out to somewhere great.
We might find a spot to park some of these cities where the weather is always going to be great. We might find a way to build them into mini Dyson-spheres, parked around a bit of fusion, or so.
I think rockets can take us to great places. Imagine a single-pass 3D printed Starship made out of titanium and other such alloys 16 Psyche might provide ..
Its a pretty big universe. A lot of it is interesting.
But I see what you're saying. Excluding our own solar system, yes, chemical rockets are super limited :)
And would it really not be possible to get to Enceladus and back (w/o people)?
The gravity there is so much less than the moon.
Or is it just the distance to and from Enceladus, and possibly nothing for a slingshot?
Right, but you can't even look at pictures of these other planets because we haven't gone at all.
And if your choice was between spending $4T to go to Macchu Picchu yourself, or look at pictures on Google Maps for free - you would almost certainly not spend $4T "for the experience".
The reality is - Nasa estimates it would cost $4B for another manned moon mission. India just sent a lunar probe to the moon for about 1/100th that price.
Even if we could send someone to Saturn - the price would be more prohibitive than the chemistry.
If it costs 100-1000 times more to send humans than robots - it's probably not worth it.