I'm also pretty sure some people said things like "We will soon have colonies on the moon" shortly after Neil Armstrong stepped off that Lunar Lander ladder. F

I'm also pretty sure some people said things like "We will soon have colonies on the moon" shortly after Neil Armstrong stepped off that Lunar Lander ladder. Fun fact: No human has set foot on the Moon since 1972: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_17 Also: When Columbus set sail, he could reasonably assume that he would see his home again. Big boats and long sea voyages were not a new technology in his time. When NASA started the Apollo Missions, they had them planned out from start to finish and knew exactly how that would work. So yes, once in a while, humanity does something amazing, that seems a bit far fetched, but still reasonable. What humanity usually doesn't do, is something that it has absolutely no plan on how to do it.