The technology that comes from space travel absolutely does help with our lives.

If it wasn't for the Apollo program computers wouldn't be nearly as advanced today, for example, and the ISS helps, not just with weather tracking, but with deforestation and crop tracking, along with the myriad of satellites we have. Other things that have come from space travel research are water filters, anti-corrosion coating, scratch resistant eye glasses, hearing-aid devices...

And since you care about the enviroment, i'll tell you that, in order to reduce the polution created by rocket launches, specially the one on natural soil around launch bases, they came up with a little something called emulsified zero-valent iron, a solution that can be injected in groundwater and eliminates a huge variety of chemicals that can be a huge risk to the enviroment. For 10 years now this thing has been used by a ton of companies from oil to chemical companies, and helps reduce their enviromental impact significantly. It's NASA's most succesful licensed product so far, too.

And if you care about money, are you really going to throw a fit over NASA's yearly budget of 25 billion, when the US military has one of 750 billion and they haven't fought any real conflicts for more than 20 years, and 80 since it fought a conflict that actually affected the US?