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I mean, in fairness their strategy for space exploration seems to be to point a starship in a random direction, hit "go" and beam down to every planet with a remotely breathable atmosphere in their PJ onesies.
The impressive part is they still seem to be the dominant superpower in half the galaxy, so... yay for them.
I would probably send drones, but that's why I'm not a Starfleet captain.
I highly recommend the book Pandora's Star by Peter Hamilton. They explore using tiny wormholes. They move them, poke a powerful sensor suite though, scan, retract, and close, gradually moving in on prospective planets. They have powerful forcefield to protect against anything coming in the other way. Makes sense to me.
They are sexy pyjamas, I can see why the other species are fine with it.
"It's an alien planet! Is there air? You don't know!"
Hey, it's why it's so possible to make loving parodies of Trek, right? If it seems okay to Tony Shalhoub it's fine by me.