Of course, hard data are going to be great. But also, they send illusions, things for children to dream of. I mean, I am sure some of the children watching the pictures and reading the articles about InSight (and about other missions, to Mars and everywhere, like Rosetta and all that) are dreaming to grow up to work in NASA. And not only as astronauts, some would like to build the rovers, being in the mission control, things like that.
Challenger put a serious pause to the space race but at least it seems that something is moving again.