Ch'i

Not to be pessemistic, but I can almost guarantee that we will not "get a handle on space" for at least 500-1000 years. Which is a shame, because I would love to visit Mars or Europa. If we lived in my second idea, then maybe 100-200 years. If a privately wealthy man can create a ship able to enter orbit for 1.3 million, imagine what that $8,536,406,705,780.94 with cooperation between countries could do. Its within our grasp, but so long as greed and pride are an inherent quality of power, it just won't happen. If there is one thing that upsets me the most, its that our current world leaders are either too stupid or blinded by their own ambition to see two inches past their own faces.