Ofcourse astrophysical study works better in soace, but who is oaying the added cost of launching telescioes to space?

Travelling to exoplanets is not hard, it just takes 1000 - 10,000 years.

There will be no FTL untill we can manipulate black holes, if ever at all.

So the first trip to exoplanels will be in a multi-hundred year hybernation, or a genration ship, or people that are so different from us that they don't mind the journey.