There are more than 5,000 confirmed exoplanets in our galaxy. That number is going to rise significantly in the next decade. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has already cataloged more than 4,000 candidate exoplanets, and the PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) is scheduled to launch in 2026.
To me, its not so much about getting there now. Its that JWST (and the space telescopes soon to follow) should be able to analyze their atmosphere’s for life. If we can survey 1,000’s of exoplanets, we should finally know how common simple single cell life is in the universe.