Do you expect to travel in space etc. within your lifetime?

Hopefully that won't be the case.

No. Not into space, not to the moon, certainly not beyond.

Unless the cost of going to orbit drops by a couple orders of magnitude, it will probably never be an option for me to go into space. The Virgin Galactic $250,000 suborbital rides are a good beginning, but a far, far cry from space travel for the masses.

I will probably be alive to witness the next landing on the moon. I think it's a pity that I was born the year of the first moon landing, 1969, but that after 1972 (or '73?), no one has gone back. I have no memory of people walking on the moon.

I don't expect anyone will walk on Mars in my lifetime. If they do, it will be getting close to the end of it. I certainly don't think it will happen before 2020, probably not before 2030. Maybe by 2040. I'd love to live long enough to see it.

Also, no one is likely to walk on Venus due to the crushing pressure and high temperatures that prevail on its surface. The "suit" one would have to wear in order to survive on Venus would so insulate one from the experience, it would be kind of a non-event. I believe Venus' atmosphere is opaque, so it wouldn't even matter if there were windows in it.

And interstellar travel? I doubt even our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren will be doing that. But the day will probably come.

See, I still think that interstellar travel via some FTL method is going to turn out to be much easier than our current science thinks. I think some bright grad student is going to have a day where s/he slaps him/herself on the forehead and goes "D'Oh!!" and there we'll have it.

But I have no rational basis for that, just a gut feeling.

I hope that you're right.

I think that you're not.

I fear you may be right. Teh sadness.