With the launch of Artemis 1 it looks like human space travel is definitely going to be a thing again. When I was a kid I thought space travel would become something that lots of us would be able to do. I read enough SF stories about it which treated it as normal. As I've grown older I've realised that a) it's expensive and b) it's hard. Current missions only work because there are vast teams of people on the ground helping out. So only a few people are going to be able to travel in space. The idea of a plucky little vessel touring the solar system seems impossible when there's so much that could go wrong that they couldn't fix themselves.
The idea of hyperspace travel doesn't look feasible through any technology we can foresee at the moment. So we're not even getting out of the solar system.
Here's some more reading on the subject:
Update 29 Nov 2022. Whilst reasearching another post I came across this:
I spent much of the past year writing a rant about why human beings should stay the hell off Mars. I'll be ready to start posting soon; here's the outline as a teaser: pic.twitter.com/UMvwdkoO3f
— Idle Words (@idlewords) November 27, 2022
Update 17 Jan 2023 Pointers to other articles, including that rant mentioned above from Adactio - Mars distracts.
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