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TawG what do you base your claim on?
At any rate I've been thinking:
The biggest limit to space travel that we have right now is proper radiation shielding and funding. Propulsion and the length of time it takes to travel great distances is not as much of a problem because quite frankly there are people willing to devote their lives to exploring the solar system in person.
As I said the main problem is radiation sheilding. As of right now astronauts who are simply oribitting the earth, are still somewhat within the magnetic field of the earth, are exposed to 3 years worth of radiation in a week. That is the main reason why astronauts only make space missions every 2 to 3 years. The magnetic field around the earth deflects cosmic radiation. Once outside this magnetic field the human body is bombarded with massive amounts of cosmic radiation. This radiation increases with solar activity. When the Apollo missions were being flow scientists paid careful attention to solar weather so that the astronauts would be in space during a time of low solar activity which mean lower amounts of radiation. However if the sun had given off a solar flare or other radiation burst the astronauts would have been fried.
However, the Apollo missions were about a week long so accurate predictions could be made and the window of saftey was fairly wide. A mission to Mars would take well over a year and the ability to predict solar weather is almost impossible. Plus the solar activity cycles are close to yearly cycles.
So once again the main problem with long distance space travel is shield from cosmic radiation. The best protection would be a magnetic field similar to that of the earth's.
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