Tito … said he doesn’t feel guilty splurging on spaceflight versus spending the money here on Earth.

Actually, Tito is spending that money here on Earth. It isn’t like he is spending his money in a tourist town rather than in the city.

It could be that the article’s author, Marcia Dunn, thinks that NASA is also spending its money in space rather than on Earth. Perhaps she thinks it is beneficial to pay people to not work rather than to pay them to do work.

Over the past 65 years, NASA, NOAA, and other government agencies have spent a lot of money, but the benefits here on Earth have been limited. NASA has created many spinoffs that have been beneficial, and NOAA has saved hundreds of billions of dollars and uncountable millions of lives from weather forecasting. Life is much easier because of global navigation satellites, but some of the best benefits have come from the commercial sector and from less spending.

Communications companies have made hundreds of billions of dollars over the decades by providing services to we earthlings. We have paid for these services because they were beneficial to us. Communication satellites are one of the most lucrative industries on earth (and off it).

Now that access to space is becoming less expensive, we should expect manufacturing in space to begin, providing us with beneficial products, not just services. ULA estimated that the space economy would quickly grow into the trillions each year, not over decades, once commercial space is able to grow in Earth orbit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxftPmpt7aA (7 minutes, “ULA CisLunar-1000”)

In the past, Jeff Bezos has advocated for space manufacturing in order to reduce the pollution that is created by earthbound manufacturing processes. What a benefit that will be.

Once we have settlements or colonies in space, then we will be able to spend money in space, but then that money will be spent on things that benefit we earthlings. Even tourism benefits we earthlings, which is why we spend money in tourist towns rather than only in the cities.

An alternative is to continue paying people to not work.